Harnessing Starfire
by Sherza
Summary: Alpha and Beta Quadrants are reeling under the after-effects of Nero's second rampage. Everyone is watching the Enterprise, crewed by children and commanded by the most unpredictable, explosive duo to ever grace Starfleet Command. After their explosive debut, how will the crew of the Enterprise fare?
1. James Tiberius Kirk

Full Summary: The Enterprise has a crew unlike any other. They are the best and brightest that Starfleet has to offer, the vast majority of them are painfully young, and they are largely untried. They are led by the most unpredictable and explosive duo that has ever graced Starfleet Command.

Alpha and Beta Quadrants are reeling under the after-effects of Nero's second rampage. The Klingon Empire's fleet has been gutted. The Romulans are ominously silent. The shattered remnants of the Vulcans are desperately trying to save their culture and their people.

All eyes are on the Enterprise, the boatload of children who succeeded where an entire armada failed. Depending on who you talk to, they are heroes, villains, or ignorant, blindingly lucky upstarts. After their rather explosive beginning, how will the Enterprise and her command crew fare?

Disclaimer: I do not own anything to do with Star Trek and never will. Please don't sue.

I fell in love with the Alternate Original Series when I saw the first movie. The differences in the various characters and the 'universe' enthralled me. The possibilities for their future were endless. Then the sequel came out, and I was SO BITTERLY DISAPPOINTED. Because with literally all the possibilities in the universe, they went with a Wrath of Khan remake.

So here I am, writing what I would have liked to see and didn't even come close to getting. Needless to say, Star Trek: Into Darkness *never happened* and never will. Everything else is fair game.

The first two chapters cover Jim and Spock and their lives from birth to just before the 'award scene' in the movie. The third chapter on will fill in the gap between that final black hole and the 'award scene', and beyond.

**James Tiberius Kirk**

There are two things James Tiberius Kirk has always known: one, he was a survivor; two, he absolutely loathed George Kirk.

The survivor thing, that was obvious to anyone who knew his name. Born early, in space, under attack by an enormous Romulan ship. The thing is ... most people assumed that was the end of it. That as George Kirk's son he wanted for nothing. They were wrong. Jim had been fighting for survival his entire fucking life. All thanks, ultimately, to George Kirk. Which explained why he loathed the man with every fiber of his being.

The first and biggest problem was that George Kirk's death broke his wife in ways that Jim would never fully understand. Jim could understand, to a point. Listening to the man you love sacrifice himself so that you and eight hundred other people (including your newborn son) can live is going to do a number on you. What he couldn't understand, and would never forgive, was that Winona didn't go down in flames alone. She tried to take Jim and his older brother down with her.

Jim first became aware of the problem when he was four years old. First there was the fact that he only knew his age because Sam told him how old he was. Secondly, it was the first year he became aware of the fact that his birthday was not like anyone else's. Sam wished him a happy birthday, but he was the only one. Winona spent the day locked in her bedroom. There was no party or gifts like his preschool friends had.

Jim also became aware, at that age, of the fact that Winona was gone from before dawn until well after dusk five or six days a week most weeks. All seven days sometimes, if she could manage it. Sam, then eight years old, was in charge of making them sandwiches for lunch and getting them both dressed and to school in the mornings. In the evenings, their nearest neighbor would come over to check on them and bring them dinner. Sam had to help Jim with his homework and get him into bed.

While it had to have been bad for Sam, forced to be responsible at such a young age, it was mostly lonely for Jim, then. Things didn't get truly horrible until a year later. That was when Winona lost her mind and decided to get married 'for the kids' sake', apparently. Frank, a local farmer, was her choice. Jim never could figure out why she married him, or why Frank accepted. Winona didn't love Frank, something Jim had figured out within a couple years. If a little kid could figure it out, Frank had to have known from the outset.

From the start, Frank was sour and grumpy and Jim, at five, couldn't figure out why. He did everything in his power to be a good boy, to impress his new dad, to no avail. Frank either ignored him or heaped verbal abuse on him. Jim's only comfort was that Sam got much the same treatment.

School was no refuge from the growing unhappiness in Jim's life. He was, literally, a genius. By the time he went into first grade, he could perform all subjects on at least a fifth-grade level, sixth for a few. He flitted from subject to subject with such speed that in an earlier era he might have been accused of having an attention deficit disorder. He was also a hands-on learner. Make him stick only to books and written tests, and he struggled, slowing to something much closer to the learning speed of his age-mates. Allow him to work outside of those constraints and he raced ahead at warp speeds. That combination of traits tended to bring out the worst in teachers, who did not have the time or resources to cater to one child's learning needs. It also made him a prime target for bullies.

Jim was six when he first realized that the way things were at home was not only not normal, but actually wrong. That Sam should not be taking care of him, especially not now that Frank was around. That the verbal putdowns Frank dished out like candy weren't right. That the occasional spankings, which were gradually increasing in frequency and severity, were also swiftly heading in that direction. That his mother should have been protecting him.

Worse, nothing was being done about the situation. Jim had seen more than one person give Frank odd looks when he snarled at Jim or Sam in public. But apparently, accusing Winona Kirk of abuse and neglect, or allowing someone else to abuse and neglect her children, was just not done. It was at that point that Jim stopped being a child. That was when he first learned that life was never fair, and that he was on his own. That was when he began to learn hate, cynicism, and mistrust of authority.

Sam was fairly phlegmatic of temperament, quiet, industrious, and obedient. He was responsible and dependable. As such, he avoided the worst of the abuse. Jim, on the other hand, was wild, restless, driven, increasingly mistrusting, angry, and bitter. The resultant clashes with Frank, Winona, and authority figures in general over the next few years were all but pre-ordained, as was the inevitable vicious cycle of anger, acting out, and punishment.

By the time he was nine, Jim was sick to death of hearing the name George Kirk, never mind anything about him. It really didn't help that George had been canonized by what felt like the entire Federation. George was an infallible god and the savior of the universe, to hear most people tell it. On the other hand, Jim was a lazy, stupid, no-account waste of oxygen and a disappointing legacy for the 'great man'.

Most of the time, Jim just wanted to punch everyone in the face and scream. Anger had all but become a living thing in his chest, making it hard to breathe sometimes. It felt like there was only George, and nothing Jim ever did was ever going to mean anything to anyone, because he wasn't George.

He'd all but stopped trying in school. He did the work assigned and then explored beyond, delving deeper into the subject, whatever it might have been. But he handed in work that was just-barely-passing quality. He'd figured out pretty damn fast that excelling was expected of George Kirk's son, and even top grades didn't get congratulated by anyone. The worst part was that fully half his teachers gave him excellent grades anyway, despite his sub-par work. It was enough to make him scream.

Then, of course, there was Frank, who constantly told Jim he was marginally stupider than the corn in the fields around their house. Winona had been in space for eleven months out of every year since he was four. She couldn't even bring herself to look at Jim most days, never mind comment on his grades. Worse, Winona had somehow managed to work things out in such a way that she hadn't had to step foot on the Kirk farm for the last two years running, so Jim hadn't even laid eyes on her in that time. The only reason he knew she wasn't dead was because they hadn't had someone from Starfleet on their doorstep, telling them she'd died. It said something about their relationship that the best he could dredge up at the thought of her death was tired resignation and dull acceptance.

The worst of it, though, was Sam. Sam was thirteen then, and had no longer wanted his little brother tagging along behind him. He'd gotten almost as exasperated with Jim as his teachers. The defection was a bitter blow.

The next few years were as close to hell as they could be for Jim. The screaming matches with Frank gradually gave way to physical lashing out on both sides that Jim lost. He lost rather spectacularly, given he wasn't even a teenager yet. Still, he refused to back down and let Frank win.

Winona flitted in and out a few times, actually visiting the farm. She was never there for more than a couple days before she left. While she was there, she never, ever looked Jim in the face, spoke directly to him, or even said his name. She looked well to one side of him and made 'general requests' like "Someone needs to take the garbage to the compactor." By then, Jim had become so habituated to her absences and her inability to interact with him that her complete rejection of him hardly stung. Or so he firmly told himself.

Still, she was his mother, and he had not given up on her entirely. Shortly after he turned twelve, Frank got the brilliant idea to sell George Kirk's old car for money he hadn't needed. Jim knew that Winona would be less than pleased with the car being sold. Sam knew it too, and for the first time in ages, they combined forces to try to talk Frank out of it, but he was intractable.

Jim then had what he later admitted was one of his less than brilliant ideas. He stole the car with the intent to destroy it, rather than see it sold to some George Kirk memorabilia collector. When all was said and done, Jim was in jail, and Winona had been recalled to Earth and couldn't make up her mind who to kill first, Jim or Frank.

As part of Jim's sentence, he had to go to a reform school, and they gave him a choice of places to go. The list was made up of something like ten such places on Earth. Frankly, Jim wanted as far away from his family as he could get. Fortunately, several dozen such places were located off-planet. Jim picked one on Tarsus IV.

At first, it was a fucking brilliant move. Nobody on Tarsus gave a merry hell who he was, or who his dad was. All they cared about was how hard he could work to help the reform school's huge facility operate smoothly, how well he could excel in class, and making sure he got his shit straightened out. Even the shrink didn't let him get away with any shit.

He had the time of his life for the next two years. His grades soared in the face of the staff's refusal to accept half-assed anything. The therapy sessions helped him get a handle on his anger and deal with the shit his life had thrown at him thus far. He began to accept that people that didn't see 'him' weren't worth the time it took to blow them to hell. He began to figure out that all that mattered was doing his best. He still hated George, but it wasn't all-consuming anymore. Best of all, the staff and other kids became a very oddball, somewhat dysfunctional but supportive and caring family; the first 'real' family Jim had ever known.

The drought when he was fourteen was worrying, but not massively so. At least, not until relief supplies didn't arrive. Jim had no idea who was at fault there: whether it was Starfleet, the governor, or someone else, but it happened. The school wasn't as hard hit as others, as they had backup supplies on hand, due to them being a government-sponsored facility. Jim hardly noticed the shortages that first year.

Then, when he was fifteen, they had another drought. Then some sort of disease hit the plant life and killed about half of what made it through the drought. They went from little food to basically no food in next to no time at all. The results were not pretty. There were riots, thefts, and an increasing number of assaults as people panicked. Again, no relief supplies came. Again, Jim didn't know why, and never did find out. Then Kodos lost his fucking mind and everything went to hell.

Starfleet, when pressed, admitted the fuckup on Tarsus IV happened. They were swift to claim matters only got out of hand for a couple weeks before Starfleet came on the run and fixed things. Starfleet lied.

It was six months. Six months of terror, starvation and a desperate, grim determination to not only get out of this alive, but to get as many of his family out alive as humanly possible. Six months of pulling rabbits out of his ass every five seconds, despite a lack of sleep and waning strength. Six months of doing things, making decisions that no adult should have to do or decide, never mind a fifteen-year-old kid; things that would haunt him for the rest of his life. Six months of agonizing grief as he watched people he'd known for years succumb to starvation and sickness or be rounded up by Kodos' minions and be executed.

By the end of those six months, Jim was nothing but a hollow shell filled with rage. Less than a day before Starfleet finally descended on the colony to render aid and restore order, Jim managed to weasel his way into Kodos' stronghold and slit the bastard's throat in his sleep. He'd been unaware that help was so close. He'd only known that the only way the madness would stop was if Kodos was no longer alive to incite his soldiers to murder.

In a bitter irony, Jim made a name for himself, if only among the Tarsus IV survivors. While no one knew who had killed Kodos, and Jim would never tell, Jim had attained recognition another way. He had somehow managed to keep twenty fellow schoolmates alive. They were skin and bone, with haunted, dead, empty eyes, but they were alive. Theirs was the only cell of survivors led by someone underage, and the only cell comprised solely of children. Their cell was also the fourth largest cell: the other three had between twenty-two and twenty-six people, all adults.

Not that Jim had known those statistics at the time. When he and his cell were found, the rescuers had to stun him to get anywhere near the others. He'd been so far gone by that point that he saw anyone not in his cell as a threat and immediately tried to kill them.

He trashed half the Sickbay when he regained consciousness. Despite being thirty pounds underweight and at the end of his strength, three medics and two security officers ended up bruised and bleeding in the ensuing struggle to get Jim restrained. In the end, they had to stun Jim again before anyone could tend to his medical needs, because even restrained, he thrashed and tried to bite anything that came in range of his teeth.

They had to keep him restrained for three days before he stopped trying to kill anyone that touched him in the process of trying to treat him. Even then, he watched everyone that came near him with an unblinking intensity, woke at the slightest noise, and flinched away from physical contact with anyone not in his cell.

He point-blank refused to speak to the shrinks that came around and tried to talk to the survivors. He simply favored them with poisonous glares and numerous projectiles aimed at their heads until they gave up and left. The only reason he got released instead of being packed away into a facility of some kind when they got to Earth was because he slipped through the cracks. At least this time, it was his own choice. He wanted no part of Starfleet's 'help'. Thankfully, they were so swamped with helping the other survivors and trying to pretend to the galaxy at large that everything was fine that it made it easy to just walk away. He later ensured that every trace that he'd ever been to Tarsus IV was erased from his records.

He returned home to find Sam long gone, having run away shortly after Jim had left for Tarsus IV, and Frank alone in the house. Things get incredibly violent incredibly quickly. Jim may have been in horrifying shape physically, but he had enough anger to fuel a starship with, and nowhere to aim it except at Frank. Frank, for his part couldn't seem to stop antagonizing Jim. Jim made it, if only barely, to his sixteenth birthday, immediately left the house, and struck out on his own. He also began the process of having himself emancipated.

Winona still hadn't shown up or called by the time Jim left, and Jim wasn't entirely sure she even knew there was a problem, never mind that Jim was in the middle of it. What pissed him off was that he went to the trouble of sending her a message about a month after he got back to Earth, and she never responded to it. And he couldn't track Sam at all. It was like Sam had disappeared off the face of the universe. It made the decision to leave that much easier.

Once clear of Frank and with a place of his own, however small and pathetic, Jim had begun a ruthless regimen of diet and exercise to bring himself back up to where he should have been physically. He drove himself incessantly, both physically and mentally, completing his final two years of school in one.

Then he went on to seek out trainers and scholars and learned from them. In the wake of Tarsus, Jim had made himself two solemn promises. He was never going to let anyone have power over him ever again, and he was never going to be helpless ever again. His physical training and continued educational efforts were a huge part of that, alongside his emancipation. Jim was resolved to be his own man and follow his own path, regardless of what anyone tried to do or say to the contrary.

Seeking out new instructors, not so coincidentally, took him far away from Iowa, much to his relief. He wandered for years. He looked up and learned from a variety of people, on a variety of subjects. He developed a taste for early writings, in every culture, Shakespeare being his favorite, though some xenohistorical writings, especially Vulcan and Klingon, were as good or better. Jim especially enjoyed the Klingon writings. Jim could get behind the sort of philosophy that race espoused.

He never once heard from Winona and when he was eighteen, he wrote her off entirely. Sam, on the other hand, contacted him about a year after Tarsus IV. Evidently, word had only then reached him about Tarsus. He'd settled on a tiny colony world that had only sporadic news updates from the rest of the Federation, and the whole Tarsus mess had been covered up to a large degree. Sam was clearly relieved beyond words to finally talk to Jim face-to-face, and they exchanged contact information. Jim made Sam his emergency contact when he gave up on Winona.

He was twenty-two when he found himself in Iowa again. He got drunk at a bar near a Starfleet facility which was, in hindsight, his first mistake. His second mistake was when he, rather understandably, had hit on the smoking-hot girl. That went predictably badly, mostly because he was drunk. Then Cupcake and his herd had gotten involved. Frankly, the only reason they managed to win that fight was because there were four of them and Jim was drunk off his ass.

The fact Jim was drunk saved both himself and Pike, after Pike broke up the fight and chased the cadets out. Jim had wanted to punch Pike in the face when he started with the George crap. He was, however, drunk enough that he wasn't sure of his aim. Better, he wasn't quite drunk enough to think that hitting a Starfleet Captain was a brilliant idea. Still, it was a damn close call.

Jim had more issues with Starfleet than he could throw a stick at and that was without bringing Tarsus into things. He loathed Starfleet almost as much as he did George. He'd fully intended to blow Pike off and go about his life as it had been. Then halfway through his all-night bike ride, he sobered up enough to have another 'bright' idea.

Starfleet wanted and needed Golden Boy George, did they? And were willing to take Jim in the hope he'd be George Mark Two? Well then, he'd indulge them. And fuck with them in every way humanly possible. See how fast he could get kicked out. Teach them to be careful what they wished for. Petty, yes, but Jim was just angry and reckless enough not to care.

So he went, and met Bones. Bones ended up being one of the bright spots of that first year. Bones could not have given less of a fuck who Jim was, just like the staff and kids at the school on Tarsus IV. It took nearly a month for Bones to realize that Jim was 'that' Kirk's son, and when he did figure it out, all he did was shrug and go on with life. Better, while Bones didn't carouse the way Jim did at first, he didn't bitch at Jim and try to be all self-righteous. They were both there for reasons other than wanting to be a part of Almighty Starfleet, so neither of them could exactly throw stones at each other.

Uhura, ironically enough, became another friend, despite their booze-soaked and less than impressive first meeting. It helped that she was another one that didn't give a damn who he was, or who his daddy was. It also helped that Jim found out Uhura beat Cupcake legless for 'defending her honor' less than forty-eight hours after Cupcake and his crew had taken Jim on. She hadn't wanted or needed the assistance, and had found his assumption that she was helpless insulting as all hell.

It took Jim two weeks to find a security recording of the whole thing, which he copied and kept tucked somewhere safe. He'd laughed himself sick and gotten more than a little turned on watching Uhura hand the guy his ass, verbally and physically. It was an object lesson in not underestimating anyone. It was also an object lesson to not piss off a communications specialist who could speak a dozen or so languages fluently, and wasn't afraid to cuss you out in all of them. Jim adored Uhura more than a little for that stunt.

Better still, Uhura was whip-sharp with a dry, sarcastic as hell sense of humor. The two of them quickly settled into a big-sister/little-brother sort of arrangement. Jim took perverse pleasure in trying to wind Uhura into knots and flirted with her shamelessly. Uhura seemed to take an unholy pleasure in meeting his hijinks with a serene calm and completely ignored his flirting. She also enjoyed saying things to him in languages he had barely known existed, never mind had been able to speak. He spent a lot of time trying to figure out what she said to him, driven by his own damnable curiosity. Of course, he had to try to one-up her. Which went predictably poorly, given she was as much a certified genius at languages as he was in general.

Uhura's refusal to tell him her first name swiftly became a running gag between them. Jim could have ended it any time he wanted. It wasn't like it would have been hard to get a hold of her records and find out. However, he had a lot of fun trying to trick her into telling him, and she had an equal amount of fun driving him insane by not falling for his tricks.

Unfortunately, Starfleet Academy was not quite all fun and games. Despite his best intentions, Jim became fascinated by the classes. Well, the subjects, anyway. The instructors, for the most part, could take a flying leap.

Two of the instructors openly ridiculed him whenever he got within ten miles of them. Two others fawned on him like he was the second coming. Most of the rest probably thought like those two groups, but were polite enough not to say anything where he could hear it.

All in all, it made acting like a complete ass those first few months a whole hell of a lot easier. In class, he slept, laughed, played games on his datapad, talked to his classmates, and even talked over the instructors - generally to correct what they were saying. That last one annoyed the ever-loving hell out of the instructors he did that to. He stayed up so late it was pointless to try to sleep, partied hard enough for three, and exploited every loophole in the rulebook he could find - ruthlessly. All while he somehow maintained a scholastic average in the top two percentile. He wasn't top of his year, but he was in the top ten in every class and in the top five in some of them. Given how much hell he was raising, that was nothing less than spectacular.

He saw a lot of Pike, who was a member of the Academy's board. It occurred mostly in the aftermath of some incident or other, when he got brought up for a reprimand. Pike was, to put it mildly, far from pleased with Jim's antics. Jim was pretty damn sure Pike's general plan had been to nudge Jim in the right direction and then stand back and watch as George Mark Two wowed the crowds. It pissed Pike off that Jim was so far from playing his game it wasn't funny. Jim took a perverse pride in screwing with Pike's plans.

It all came to a head about three months into Jim's Academy career. He could smell the expulsion coming, at that point. It was hardly a surprise when he got thrown into Pike's office again after his latest stunt. Pike started bitching at him about not living up to his father's legacy, as usual.

Jim just sort of snapped. Completely did not give a shit about the whole 'captain in the fleet' and 'member of the board' thing, because he knew damn well he'd be getting expelled in short order, so who gave a fuck? He gave it to Pike with all four barrels. Pike yelled back and, for a few minutes there, Jim was wondering if they were going to actually come to blows.

Then right in the middle of the fight, Pike suddenly shut up, and gave Jim the weirdest look he'd ever been subjected to up to that point. It cut the wind out of Jim's sails enough that he stopped bellowing, mostly in confusion. Then Pike apologized; which marked the first time anyone had ever apologized for the George Kirk shit. Jim gave Pike a dumbfounded stare for a minute. Pike took advantage of his shock to send him packing.

It didn't fix things completely, of course. Especially not right away. Jim did start to slow down with the antics. Pike in turn started to step up, running interference with the worst of the 'George' offenders. He also completely shut up about George himself, and never actually mentioned the man again except when they were in public and it was expected.

Jim started to find his feet after that, to enjoy the Academy and thrive under the challenges thrown his way. He also started to like Pike, much to his own surprise, and continued to spend a good deal of time in the man's office, though for more pleasant purposes than the first three months.

As he'd predicted, though that had been a joke at the time, Jim was well on his way to completing the four-year program a year early when he had to face the Kobayashi Maru. He'd heard about the test, of course, and had been pre-disposed to despise it. Actually taking the test pissed him off to levels he hadn't felt since Kodos because the test was sadistic and defeatist. All it did was teach people to give up when the going got rough, and Kirk had never, would never, be able to do that.

The test offended him so much he set out to win the unwinnable, for a given value of win. He was completely aware that someone, somewhere, was going to throw a temper tantrum about what he was planning to do. That said, someone had to slap those assholes in the face with the fact that the Kobayashi Maru scenario was probably nine-tenths of what was wrong with Starfleet as a whole. It taught cowardice, diffidence, and to never bother to think outside the box. It taught people that they were already dead, so why bother fighting. What the cadets needed to be taught was courage, a refusal to call it quits, and adaptability in the face of the unknown and unpredictable.

He wasn't quite prepared, though, for a sarcastic, vindictive, merciless Vulcan on a mission to utterly destroy him on a personal level, rather than acquiesce to a debate on the merits of the scenario. It sort of made Jim grateful that all evidence that he knew Tarsus IV existed, never mind had been there for the slaughter, had been erased from his records. He was fairly sure Spock would have tried to work that in there somewhere in his efforts to discredit Jim if he'd known. If Spock had done that, Starfleet would have been minus a Vulcan officer. Jim would not have reacted well to Spock tearing into him over that.

Jim honestly hadn't expected Bones to break the rules and get him aboard the Enterprise. He'd actually been willing to stay, despite the fact it was clear some sort of serious shit was going down. Vulcans just did not start screaming for help on a whim. He had not been grateful to Bones, because the bastard's chosen method of getting him aboard fucking sucked.

Then, half out of his mind with drugs and reactions to them, he heard 'lightning storm in space' and it was like someone flipped a switch in his brain. All he could think of was getting to the bridge and stopping the ship. He knew down to the marrow of his bones that as bad as everyone thought the situation was, it was actually about ten thousand times worse.

He hated it when he was right. Though Spock actually admitting he was right was a surprise. Evidently, the bastard was able to put his pique at Kirk's flaunting of logic aside when the evidence supported Jim's assertion they were headed straight for massive trouble.

From there, it was more or less the adrenaline rush from hell, combined with repeatedly getting his ass kicked as he discovered just how inadequate his combat training was. He repeatedly made a mental note to bitch at his instructors if he lived through that mess. Someone, somewhere, should have come up with something that helped a human deal with someone three times stronger and a whole hell of a lot more durable than a human was.

The look on Spock's face when he beamed back aboard the Enterprise with his father and some of the Vulcan Elders, hand outstretched, would stay with Jim a long, long time. He knew that look. Like hell did he have the first idea of what to say to the guy.

Then Spock lost his mind and decided a conference was the best way to deal with Nero, who was on his way to destroy Earth. Kirk couldn't even begin to find the logic there, and made it really damn clear he was not ok with Spock's idea. That got him thrown off the bridge. Unfortunately, Jim had never lost his tendency to react violently when grabbed by someone unexpectedly, especially when he was running on adrenaline. He started whaling on the security team almost instinctively and then his world went dark so fast and unexpectedly he couldn't even begin to resist it.

He woke up on Hoth. He'd watched the old science fiction movies when he was a kid, and this place was a ringer for that fictional planet. He then got chased by something that looked a lot like the creature that ate Solo's mount in that movie. Before the thing could catch up with Jim, it got the shit beat out of it by, well, Jim hadn't exactly waited around to figure out what the hell the new critter was, other than big and red. He just ran like hell. Not that it had done him all that much good. Then someone came out of nowhere and waved a blazing stick in the thing's face and it backed off. Jim, much to his surprise, found himself face to face with a positively ancient-looking Vulcan. Who gave him a very odd look before calling Jim by his full name.

The next thirty minutes or so were the most fucked-up shit he had ever experienced, which said something. The old guy had no fucking clue. At all. Even when Jim asked about his dad, the old guy still didn't get that Jim was not anything like the James T. Kirk the old guy had known. But for once, Jim cut someone with preconceived notions of who he ought to be some slack. The old guy has had a fucking horrible couple of days. It was a miracle the old guy was sane. Jim could deal with him thinking he was identical to 'his' James Kirk until the guy got his legs back under him.

He and Scotty headed back for the Enterprise with a thin-ass excuse for a plan. Jim was nowhere near prepared for Spock when he set out to make him reveal his compromised status. As bad as getting beaten by the Romulans on the drill had been, this was worse. Jim was pretty damn sure that Spock wasn't holding back. The Romulans had been contemptuous of Human strength and fighting ability, and had put forth what they thought was enough effort to kick Jim and Sulu off the drill_. _Spock was in a blind rage.

The hits came insanely hard and brutally fast. Jim was barely able to fend off the worst of them, lashing out instinctively under the assault despite not actually wanting to beat Spock into the ground. Then Spock really managed to nail him and he was on his back. Spock was on him in a second, trying to choke the shit out of him. Jim thought he was done for when the pressure abruptly eased. It actually eased before someone (Spock's dad, he found out later) called Spock's name. Spock didn't stop choking him, but between one moment and the next, he stopped trying to actively kill Jim. Then his dad yelled and Spock turned him loose and declared himself unfit to command and walked off, leaving a seriously confused Jim in his wake.

The confusion didn't lessen in the least when Spock came back and volunteered to go beat the hell out of the bad guys and steal their toys. Jim, not entirely convinced Spock wasn't going to treat it like a suicide mission, elected himself to go along in some dim hope that it'd keep Spock from doing something stupid.

Despite how bad things were, he had to fight to keep from cracking up when Uhura came in and kissed the shit out of Spock, and he said her name. When Kirk asked to confirm, Spock was quick to claim neutral ground. Jim had known Uhura was going out with someone, but she'd been keeping it quiet, and now he knew why. It wasn't against the rules to date an instructor, but people did still get dirty looks and suspicion tossed their way regarding their grades. It was also very clear that Jim had come up in conversation at some point. Spock's rapid backpedal when Jim commented on Uhura's first name was a dead giveaway. That was, after all, Jim and Uhura's game. Bones knew about it, but he was the only one Jim had told, and Jim was fairly sure Uhura had been as tight-lipped.

The first time he got a hint that something weird was going on was when they transported to the Narada and got dropped into the middle of a shit-ton of Romulans. For two guys who had been doing their damndest to either piss each other off or kill each other, he and Spock were insanely in synch so fast it made his head spin. Hell, he hadn't even had to give voice to 'go interrogate that guy'. Just the fact that he'd switched to stun on his phaser was enough for Spock to figure it out. It hadn't been one-way either. When he thought about it later, Jim was fairly sure he had been picking something up from Spock too. He'd been following the bastard and shooting at shit that he hadn't been able to see but was somehow aware of. It didn't stop there, either. When they got back to the ship, they were walking in synch and standing shoulder-to-shoulder like they'd done it every day of their lives.

Jim didn't really have much time to contemplate the mystery at that point, though. Roughly ten minutes after they blew clear of the Narada's final black hole, the adrenaline rush Jim had been riding since the whole mess started finally drained out of him. Less than a minute after that, he blacked out from the pain. He woke up almost a day later in Sickbay to an epically pissed and ranting Bones, who had Spock cornered and was brandishing a hypo at him, thoroughly pissed off at all the damage Jim had taken and blaming Spock for it.


	2. S'chn T'gai Spock

**S'chn T'gai Spock**

A/N: Underlined text is a direct quote from the movie.

There are two things S'chn T'gai Spock has always known: one, he was a survivor; two, Vulcans were blatant liars.

The first instance of his survival skills was self-evident. Vulcans and Humans were not naturally capable of crossbreeding. That Spock was the only living Human-Vulcan hybrid indicated the success of the attempts to combine Vulcan and Human DNA. It also indicated the sheer, blind luck that had guarded his initial conception, and his stubborn refusal to die thereafter.

Vulcan children were more developed than their same-age Human counterparts, and Spock's mental makeup was largely Vulcan. So Spock, at three, was aware that he was unique; that he was the only hybrid to survive birth and be more than temporarily viable. He was, as far as the healers could determine, fully functional and fully viable as a sapient being save for the fact he was sterile.

He was aware that he was an object of curiosity to Vulcans in general and the medical community in particular. No one had any idea how he would develop or how he would compare to full-blooded Vulcans or Humans. He was watched and his doings recorded, but it was not with an eye towards proving he was inferior. Granted, there had been a few who looked upon his existence unfavorably but it had not been a community-wide perception.

That changed with brutal rapidity after Nero's appearance. The revelation of the Rihannsu, and their close biological relationship to Vulcans, had not gone down well. Some Humans reacted badly to the revelation: accusing Vulcans of deceit, and of harboring their Rihannsu relations amongst their number, among other things. It was nowhere near all Humans who stated this, but it was enough. Enough of those making such claims held positions of power in the Federation for many Vulcans to become xenophobic (or more xenophobic, as the case may have been).

Sarek went, in the space of a year, from being a respected ambassador who happened to have a human wife and a half-human son to being mocked and having epithets flung at him. Frequently to his face, if only once by any one person before Sarek shut them up and shut them down in his inimitable style. 'Race traitor' was the most polite epithet, if such illogical insults could ever be called polite. He lost much influence with the Council, despite being the First Son of the most pre-eminent House on Vulcan.

Only among a section of the House of Surak was Sarek safe from the vicious, poisoned tongues of gossip. The House of Surak had always prided itself on its dedication to logic and IDIC, in honor of Surak himself. Unfortunately not all the members of the House lived up to the House's ideals. Fully half the clan was every bit as bad as the general Vulcan population, depriving Sarek, Amanda, and Spock of that safe harbor. The only consolation was that T'pau, their Clan Mother and leader of all Vulcan, did not suffer from this broken logic. She did not permit such poison to be spewed in her presence, and threw her weight behind Sarek, Amanda, and Spock.

That was Spock's first exposure to just how much Vulcans lie. Insofar as he could see, there was no logic to be found in the increasing xenophobia. This was especially obvious in light of the supposedly treasured belief in IDIC; which was clearly also a lie. When put to the test, what seemed like nine-tenths of Vulcan promptly showed they actually didn't believe in logic or IDIC at all and had only been giving both beliefs lip service only.

Sarek became far more grim and extremely protective of Amanda in the first couple of years after the Narada's arrival. Not that Spock disagreed with his father's position on the matter. He'd seen the way an increasing number of Vulcans eyed Amanda. Were it not for their tenuous clinging to what logic they had left and their wariness of Sarek, Spock was fairly sure a few of them might have killed her to remove the blight of her presence.

Amanda bore the sudden shift in everyone's attitudes with a grace and dignity that shamed all who vilified her. Spock gradually became able to perceive the steel in his mother's spine and the cleverness of her tongue as well as her grace and dignity, as he got older. Amanda was an expert at insulting someone in a way that could be (and usually was) misconstrued by the unwary as an approbation. She was not shy of doing it to anyone, even the members of the High Council on the rare occasions one of those august persons deigned to address her.

What he didn't figure out right away was that Sarek was also shielding and protecting Spock. He finally figured it out when he was six, the day an older schoolmate and his friends tried to get him to react emotionally for the thirty-fifth time since Spock had started counting their spectacularly inept attempts. Unfortunately, this time the bullies finally hit on a successful ploy and Spock finally lost control because they called his mother a whore.

Thanks to the parental bond, his father and mother had been aware of Spock's loss of control instantly. Sarek had probably been en route to the school before Spock had even finished beating the boy into the floor. Spock later decided that Sarek had to nerve-pinch Amanda to keep her from coming as well. Spock had felt the exceedingly odd combination of pride, fury, and concern radiating from her. It was a particular combination that never failed to incite her to action of some sort, though Spock had never been the cause of the emotions before.

The fact Spock has a parental bond with Amanda was one of their family's biggest secrets. Sarek and Amanda had never mentioned it when Spock was born, except to T'pau, who checked on such things. Once things went sour they had every reason to keep it unknown to the general populace. Spock sometimes wondered how people would react to the news were they to find out. It would probably be quite entertaining, as the general consensus was that Humans were incapable of any mental bond of any description.

Spock would eventually swear to always remember the advice Sarek gave him the day he attacked the bully. He'd been too young at that point to fully understand what Sarek had been trying to tell him - or even realize its import - but he'd come to understand it not too much later. It was advice he chose to live his life by: "As ambassador to Earth, it is my duty to observe and understand Human behavior. Marrying your mother was logical. Spock, you are fully capable of deciding your own destiny. The question you face is: which path will you choose? This is something only you can decide."

On the surface these were cold and harsh words, but Sarek's emotions had made it quite clear it was anything but. Love, pride, joy, and more made it clear that marrying Amanda had, yes, been logical but for reasons far removed from anything to do with Sarek's job as ambassador. That had just been the vehicle by which Sarek had encountered her, nothing more.

It had been logical to marry Amanda because Sarek loved her. Therefore, while logic could and did assist with the control of emotions, emotions could and did guide one's logic. This was, to say the least, radical thinking for a Vulcan. Yet Sarek was not espousing the forsaking of logic for emotion, as many would presume. Rather, Sarek had proposed the possibility of pursuing pure logic, yet not fully forsaking emotion as did the Kolinahr adepts.

Nor had Sarek sought to force Spock to do as he bid, which was a father's right by Vulcan custom. By telling Spock he was fully capable of choosing his own destiny, Sarek had indicated that Spock was free to make his own choice in this matter. Furthermore, he had made it clear that Spock did indeed have a choice to make. Spock had simply been too young to fully understand all Sarek had been trying to tell him.

The thing that Spock hadn't quite caught on to at age six was that there were more than two paths before him. There was more than being pure Vulcan or being pure Human. The concept of blending the two did not occur to him for many years.

There was one thing that was decided that day, thanks to the way his father's mind vibrated with pride for his defense of his mother. That day, despite his youth, they forged a wordless alliance: the woman both of them loved above all else would be protected, come what may.

In the aftermath, Sarek found it logical to teach Spock how to both defend himself and to fight aggressively. After all, not everyone could or would proceed with matters logically and physical confrontations were therefore all but inevitable. It was logical to ensure that Spock had as great a chance of winning the inevitable confrontations as possible.

Vulcans generally espoused a pacifistic approach and preferred to defend only. Thus this was Spock's first exposure to just how much one could twist logic to permit pretty much anything. Over the next few years, Sarek taught him not only Suus Mahna, which was wholly defensive, but a far more aggressive Vulcan martial art that hailed from the days before Surak. The more aggressive art had fallen out of favor and common use in the wake of Vulcans embracing logic. However, in a fine display of irony, it had been kept alive by Surak's own House. Sarek also taught him how to shoot with a variety of weapons and every wilderness survival trick Sarek had learned over the years.

Outside their home, Spock took refuge in being more Vulcan than his schoolmates. Despite other attempts at provocation, he never again lost control of his emotions in public. He hid behind the bulwark of logic. As he grew older, he began to twist logic to suit his purposes in a deliberate imitation of his father. His early attempts lacked the subtle mastery of the art that Sarek possessed, but he continually improved. He also made a point of outperforming everyone scholastically. Not that it was truly difficult to accomplish. Whether by accident or design, Spock found he easily outstripped the scholastic performances of his agemates from very early on.

When Spock was seven, the time had come for him to be linked to his future bondmate. Sarek point-blank refused to put Spock through the ritual. Sarek refused to link his son to someone who, in all likelihood, despised him. As Sarek pointed out to Amanda when they discussed Spock's participation in the ritual, they had no idea if Spock would even go through Pon Farr. If he did not, he would have no need of a mental link to his mate to anchor him against the Time's ravages. Even if he ended up going through Pon Farr Spock was, as Sarek pointed out yet again, fully capable of determining his own fate and therefore finding his own mate before his Time hit.

It was, to be brutally honest, a relief to Spock to not have to have someone linked to him like that. Oh, there was a chance that whatever girl Sarek managed to drum up wouldn't hate him, but that chance was slim indeed. Spock much preferred the idea of having the chance to find someone that he liked and who liked him in return on his own; of having a chance at the relationship he saw between his mother and father.

Needless to say, not everyone took the news well. Most alarming to Spock had been T'pau. She summoned Sarek, Amanda, and Spock before her and demanded that Sarek explain himself and his break with tradition - as was her right as Clan Mother. Spock had been forced to ruthlessly repress the urge to hide behind his father when they arrived at T'pau's residence. Her status as the Clan Mother of the House of Surak aside, T'pau was an incredibly intimidating woman; especially to a seven-year-old.

What followed was one of the most eye-opening encounters in Spock's life and the first time Spock was exposed to exactly why no one challenged Sarek more than once, verbally or physically. He neither shouted nor cursed. He used logic like a blade, folded and forged to his will, and presented his conclusions as the only reasonable conclusions that one could reach, if one possessed a mind and any dreg of logic at all. All said with the connotation, unvoiced but nevertheless clearly present, that one was lacking in intelligence, wisdom, and logic if one came to any other conclusion than the one Sarek espoused. A state of affairs that grieved and disappointed Sarek deeply, but he would attempt to lead the erring personage to the correct path nevertheless. Additionally, once they had accepted the correct path, those he led to it would be grateful to Sarek for his wisdom and perseverance.

It was, to say the least, a masterful performance. One that Spock did not fully appreciate until he was a good deal older but that still impressed his seven-year-old self immensely. Especially when T'pau bowed before Sarek's argument, agreed his logic was sound, and that Spock would not be forced to go through the bonding ceremony. Sarek had gotten the leader of all Vulcan and his Head of House to agree to something she had initially been opposed to. That was a not inconsiderable feat and one which did not lose its impact when Spock realized that T'pau had not needed Sarek to turn his oratorical gift on her.

He found out later as an adult that T'pau had agreed with Sarek. Unfortunately such a breach of tradition, especially on something so (normally) vital to Vulcan well-being, required the tradition-breaker be called to account for their actions. Not even T'pau was above that particular law. Had it been any other matter, she would have been able to ignore it.

Of course, the fact he was not bonded caused problems with his peers. Spock had been actively shunned since the arrival of the Narada by his agemates. He had no compatriots with whom he spent time outside of school; friends, for lack of a more logical term. Even though he had retreated behind the bulwark of logic and made a point of never exhibiting emotion, his agemates persisted in persecuting him as did his teachers and elders. That he had no bondmate was further fodder for them all and was commented on endlessly.

Some days it made him want to beat the crap out of them. He longed to demand an explanation of where the logic was in vilifying, mocking, and otherwise treating a child ill for something he could not control. Where was the logic in assuming that Humans were lesser creatures than Vulcans? Where was the admiration and acceptance of infinite diversity?

He ceased all attempts at interacting peaceably with his peers, or anyone else aside from his mother and father. He kept to himself. His father got him a sehlat in an effort to provide him with some sort of interaction aside from his parents and Spock did indeed take a great deal of comfort from I-Chaya over the next eleven years.

The only benefit to those years was the fact that he had been able to put his full attention on developing his considerable intelligence. He threw himself into his schoolwork, rapidly outpacing his agemates and the next oldest class. He also trained himself conscientiously in the various martial arts and survival skills Sarek imparted to him.

Unfortunately, he was still very lonely. That loneliness initially made the thought of attempting Kolinahr that much more tempting. If logic was to be his only refuge, why not go that extra step? The only thing that made him hesitant about it was his mother and whether or not she'd see him pursuing Kolinahr as a betrayal.

He'd still been too young to fully understand the advice Sarek had given him when he'd been six. As a result, he had still been stuck on the idea that there were only two paths before him. Even undergoing the kahs-wan coming of age ceremony at age seventeen did not entirely change his mind. He did come to the conclusion, during that arduous rite of passage, that if he was to have any chance at peace he would probably have to leave Vulcan entirely.

In light of that realization, applying to Starfleet as well as the Vulcan Academy had been logical. It had also been a bit of an illogical whim, if he was honest with himself. He was under no illusions that he would fit in any better at Starfleet. He would be the first Vulcan to attend there after all, which was bound to make things awkward at first. His visual resemblance to Vulcans would also be problematic in that everyone would expect him to *be* Vulcan.

It wasn't until he was before the Vulcan Council to determine his eligibility for the Vulcan Institute and yet again his mother's supposed inferiority was brought up that he realized there had never really been a choice to be made after all. For all its faults, Starfleet was at least completely comfortable allowing non-humans in its midst. There might be misunderstanding and prejudice but it would be individual, rather than species-wide. He could no longer tolerate Vulcan hypocrisy. At that point, even the shield of total logic as supposedly attainable at Gol sounded hollow and false.

To Spock's relief, after his initial surprise at Spock's refusal of the Council's recommendation Sarek supported Spock's decision fully. Spock was actually able to feel the shift in his father's emotions as he recovered from the surprise. Amanda had been outright jubilant at Spock's decision. So he went to Starfleet with his parents' full approval.

Before he went, Sarek had another talk with him and this time, Spock finally understood the underlying message in Sarek's advice to his six-year-old self. He meditated on that advice extensively on the trip to Earth. He eventually made the decision to continue to pursue logic and Vulcan ideals but to permit himself to experience emotions, even if he did not allow those emotions to become obvious to anyone around him.

To his surprise, he found something of a niche at Starfleet. Oh, everyone automatically assumed he was of pure Vulcan stock and treated him accordingly but Spock swiftly discovered that the Human understanding of Vulcan culture and behavioral norms was incomplete. Few, if any, noticed the inconsistencies in his behavior that resulted from his allowing himself to experience emotions; inconsistencies that would have been glaring, blindingly obvious faults to Vulcans. He was able to experiment and find a happy medium between emotionless logic and Human emotionalism. As he had predicted, there were a few people that disapproved of him for one reason or another.

Still, it was a very lonely time. Spock had no real friends during his stint as a student. A large part of it was due to not exactly knowing how to go about forming friendships, since he'd not had anything of the sort on Vulcan. Even if he'd been familiar with the process, it would logically be different when attempting to befriend a Human and Spock hadn't a clue where to start. Some of his isolation had, however, been due to people respecting the Vulcan tendency for standoffishness or being a bit too intimidated to approach him. Again, it was something he had not, at the time, known how to handle or change.

He graduated with full honors at the top of his class. Much to his pleasure, both Sarek and Amanda made it to his graduation. Even more remarkable, they brought with them a small gift from T'pau, a clear sign of her continued support. They spent a few days together before he shipped out on his first ship assignment.

That first assignment had been a challenge. Spock swiftly discovered that while his penchant for exactitude was an enormous boon to the execution of his duties in the Science division, it was not so successful in other venues. His commanding officers found his stiff, formal precision off-putting and largely dismissed him as either arrogant or someone who did whatever they could to appease those in authority. Fortunately, the trip was a short one.

His stint on a ship may have been uncomfortably close to a failure, but the Academy had found another use for his intelligence and capabilities. Upon his return, he was asked to become an instructor in the computer and communications classes. This, Spock found most agreeable. Putting together a curriculum that challenged the abilities of beings from multiple races was quite rewarding.

He met Nyota his first year as an instructor and her first year as a cadet. She was an incredibly gifted linguist, and strikingly beautiful. She had a calm serenity and self-confidence that equaled that of any Vulcan. She was also a bit older than most cadets and only two years younger than himself. Spock would not go so far as to say he was smitten but he hadn't been too far from it.

He did not attempt to speak to her of his attraction. He was utterly convinced that she would not return his regard. He was, after all, alien in more than one sense of the word as well as completely unfamiliar with human customs as regarded the wooing of a mate. He contented himself with admiring her from a polite distance. He got quite a surprise when she cornered him after class one day early in her third year and asked him to dinner under the pretense of discussing something that had come up in class.

Spock was shortly grateful that humans had abolished the somewhat illogical laws that had made it illegal for an instructor or superior officer to be romantically involved with a student or junior officer even when said student or junior officer was past the age of consent. There were no restrictions on their slow-growing relationship, so long as the student or junior officer was not coerced or shown blatant favoritism of course.

He could have done far, far worse than a linguist of Nyota's skill with whom to attempt his first intimate relationship. Spock was prone to admittedly stilted, stiff verbal sallies. He lapsed into Vulcan sometimes in an effort to communicate something he didn't know the Standard equivalent of and when he stumbled onto uncertain footing in a conversation. Nyota's ability to parse body language, her fluency in Vulcan, and her ability to fill in the verbal gaps helped immensely to bridge the gaps between them and prevented a number of misunderstandings.

He was aware of Jim Kirk long before he actually met the man. Kirk's entrance into the Academy had been rather notable to him due in large part to the fact he had flirted with Nyota, who told him of the encounter. She had been amused by Kirk's juvenile attempts to garner her attention and thoroughly outraged by Cadet Giotto's chauvinism. Beyond that, however, Spock knew nothing save that Kirk embarked on a wholly illogical attempt to ignore, bend, break, and circumvent as many Starfleet rules and regulations as possible.

Spock had been intensely curious as to how such a volatile person could not only succeed but excel in the Academy classes while simultaneously flaunting every rule and regulation he could get a hold of. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately given Kirk's penchant for trouble, Spock never had Kirk in any of the classes he taught, preventing a closer examination of the young Human. Kirk was in the command track, which precluded any specialization. The classes Spock taught were specialized classes that only Communications and Science personnel needed. Spock was of the belief that Kirk clearly did not have the aptitude necessary to thrive in Communications or Computers classes.

Or so Spock had presumed. Even Nyota's tales of the man presented him as somewhat juvenile and quite exasperating in his behavior and of questionable intellectual prowess. He had taken these comments at face value, being unaware of the tendency for Humans to exaggerate the faults of those they were close to in conversation. Spock remained ignorant of Kirk's true abilities until the man succeeded in hacking the Kobayashi Maru scenario, which indicated a very, very high capability with computer programming. Spock himself had programmed the scenario and he was one of the best in programming that the Academy had ever seen. For Kirk to be able to subvert a program Spock had created spoke to his skill.

That said, Kirk's reason for doing so evaded Spock's best attempts at figuring it out. Insofar as Spock could ascertain, this was just the last in a long line of flouting rules and regulations. Spock came to the decision that Kirk was clearly unfit for Starfleet service and that an inquest was called for. Unfortunately, the inquest (interrupted as it had been) provided neither answers nor solutions to the problem that was Cadet Kirk. Not that he had cared, once the reason for the interruption had been announced. Vulcan was under attack. His parents were in danger. Even at that point, his logic had been teetering on the edge of a knife.

Kirk's appearance on the Enterprise had been an unpleasant surprise but Spock had been stunned at the speed with which Kirk had put the pieces together to figure out what the problem at Vulcan was. It was a rather stunning display of logical thinking achieved by highly illogical means. This was his second clue that there was more to Kirk than met the eye, though he hadn't realized that at the time.

His logic had taken a severe hit when Chekov told them Vulcan would die in minutes. Spock was well aware that his father and mother would be in the Katric Ark with the other Elders, trying to absorb as many of the katras as they could. His parents and the elders had that long to live unless he got them out of there. He promptly bolted for the transporter room and then across the barren, self-destructing surface of his home planet. His relief at seeing them both alive and unharmed in the Katric Ark had been immense.

He was later gratified by the fact he hadn't blacked out under the backlash of the deaths of millions of Vulcans on top of the loss of his mother. He later discovered that he was one of a small number who had been able to remain on their feet and even marginally functional. The Elders, insulated by the possession of extra katras, had been fine; as had the half handful of Gol Masters and Kholinar Adepts that had not been on Vulcan. The rest of the surviving Vulcans had not been so lucky: only a few dozen had managed to stay functional. Every other Vulcan in the galaxy had been brought to their knees, many of them knocked unconscious by the backlash.

Much of the next hour or so was an indistinct blur to him. He had evidently been moving and thinking on autopilot, defaulting to something as close to pure Vulcan logic as he'd ever been capable of; a state that, of course, the highly illogical James T. Kirk disapproved of and objected to strenuously. Later, Spock would be willing to admit Kirk had a point: his decision would have meant the death of Earth and possibly other planets. His logic, such as it was, had clearly suffered from the death of his people and his world. Why else had Spock decided to go to the Laurentian system to confer with the rest of the fleet or maroon Kirk on Delta Vega? He ended up being incredibly grateful for the latter decision later - much, much later.

When Kirk showed back up with a guest in tow, Spock had more or less managed to get his legs back under him. He was still a bit shaky, but he was thinking a bit more clearly. Or so he had thought at the time. He was instantaneously aware of Kirk's gambit when he and his guest were brought to the bridge. Kirk meant to expose him as emotionally compromised. Spock did not intend to permit that because he wasn't compromised; at least not the way he perceived it.

He hadn't counted on Kirk's inexplicable ability to drive even a Gol Master to a frothing rage. Kirk went straight for the sorest spot Spock had at the time and hit it fast and hard. Even knowing that Kirk was deliberately trying to provoke him didn't stop the inevitable. Spock could no more have stopped himself from attacking Kirk than he could have stopped breathing and continued to live.

He had ceased to be capable of not rising to his mother's defense a very long time ago. He would have risen to the bait even if she had been alive. That she had died and he saw it as being somewhat his fault as he should have held on to her, only ensured the success of Kirk's gambit all the sooner. But when Spock attacked him, something happened that he had not come anywhere near expecting. The exact cause would forever remain a mystery to both himself and Jim.

Maybe it was the loss of his bond with his mother. Maybe it was the shock of feeling so many Vulcans die. Maybe it was how close his hand was to the usual psi-points. Maybe it was how enraged he was in that moment. Maybe it was, as he found out later, that Jim had very recently mind-melded with his older, alternate self. Whatever the cause, his mental shields were either destroyed or down and the moment his bare skin touched Jim's neck, Spock inadvertently got a good look at Jim's mind.

Vulcan minds were orderly and organized and, for lack of a better description, laid out logically. Amanda (the only other human mind Spock had experience with) had been remarkably similar mentally, with suitable Human variations. This was probably because of her mental bond with Sarek. She was bound to have been influenced by that, especially after so many years.

Jim's mind, on the other hand, was all bright colors, vivid impressions and - to Spock's view - complete chaos. Even in the middle of being choked half to death, Jim's mind was flickering from thought to thought in rapid succession. The vast majority of those thoughts had nothing to do with his current situation and how to get the heck out of it, which would have been a logical subject for him to be contemplating at the time. Flashes of memory were scattered about, with no clear organization or context. Beneath all that chaos laid Jim's emotions. Jim's emotions were a vast, deep well filled to the brim with stubborn determination, tightly controlled rage, bitter cynicism, loneliness, and a drive to survive. They equaled anything a Vulcan was capable of, which had been a bit of a surprise.

As Sarek had pointed out when Spock was a child, Vulcans felt deeply. They had, at one time, been ruled by their intense emotions. This was a state of affairs that had very nearly seen Vulcans wiped out multiple times before the time of Surak and logic. Humans, while emotional and fully capable of being passionate, did not feel as intensely as Vulcans. Their emotions were, as a rule, not all-consuming at all times. They were certainly capable of bursts of extremely intense emotions but that was not their default state.

Jim, however, was the exception to that rule. Jim was a creature of intense emotions and instinctive drives. In that moment of mental contact, Spock realized that Jim would never stop. Jim would happily march straight up to the mythical Human Devil, if such a creature actually existed, and beat him senseless if said Devil got in the way of Jim accomplishing some goal. Jim was literally incapable of giving up. He would keep fighting to win, to survive, until his last gasp and potentially beyond. He would do whatever it took to survive and as a result, would take everyone around him with him.

Spock was so surprised by that peek into Jim's mind that the contact jolted him most of the way out of his killing rage. His grip on Jim's throat eased even before Sarek called his name. He was so busy trying to get himself back under some modicum of control after that that he hadn't noticed that something seemed to slide into place in his mind, smoothing out a few of the jagged edges left by the losses he had suffered.

He retreated temporarily to get some measure of control after he'd declared himself emotionally compromised. To his surprise, his father followed him and reminded him of the conversation they'd had all those years ago. Sarek reasserted his stance as regarded Spock and his life and decisions. He also got the concept of 'I am still here. We will grieve, but as long as we live, she is not fully gone' across as best he knew how, given the circumstances. It was cold comfort, but better than nothing at the time. Once things had calmed down a touch, there would be time for both grief and comfort in full measure.

Once Spock had managed to get his emotional bearings again, he returned to the bridge. He arrived just in time to hear the crew hashing out a plan of attack on the Narada. He volunteered to be the one to carry it out. Somehow, he was completely unsurprised by the fact that Jim instantly volunteered himself to go along with him. Jim had clearly picked up on the fact that Spock was not operating at full efficiency and probably wanted to ensure Spock didn't do something else illogical. At least, illogical by Jim's measure, whatever that was.

Spock was aware, within moments of their arrival on the Narada, of the fact that Jim seemed to have synchronized himself to Spock or vice versa. They seemed to be all but sharing a single mind as they moved and dealt with the enemy. They ducked, dived, ran, and fired in concert. Spock found himself frequently doing so in response to targets he did not see himself and was aware of Jim doing likewise. He had not, however, analyzed the reason for the synchronicity at the time. It was hardly the time or place after all.

He also became aware that something very, very odd was up as soon as he mentally interrogated the Rihannsu and discovered the 'black hole device' was, in fact, a ship. A ship, he swiftly discovered, that responded to his voice-print and called him 'Ambassador Spock'. Facts which did not phase Jim in the slightest. Spock's agile mind swiftly came to a very discomfiting conclusion to that data.

Spock pushed those thoughts aside as he piloted the stolen ship out of the Narada and destroyed the drill. He swiftly came to the decision that there was really only one way to end this conflict once and for all and piloted the ship into a collision course. He had fully expected to die, either when one of the missiles hit the ship or when he crashed into the Narada. The Enterprise's sudden appearance and subsequent destruction of the Narada's missiles was highly disconcerting. He was not sure whether to be disappointed or gratified at his rescue.

When they were back on the bridge and the immediate danger was over, Spock made due note to investigate at least the synchronicity after he became aware that Jim was in trouble. Spock called out for Sickbay and Doctor McCoy a split second before Jim suddenly sagged in his chair. It quickly became clear that Jim was succumbing to the myriad injuries he had received in his adventures since he snuck aboard the Enterprise.

There was a brief, mad scramble between himself, Nyota, Chekov, and Sulu to stabilize Jim's vitals before Doctor McCoy arrived. When Doctor McCoy did arrive, he all but literally kicked them away to deal with Jim himself. Despite his immediate, voluble verbal attack on all and sundry, Doctor McCoy moved with swift, efficient purpose. Moments later, Jim was on a gurney and Doctor McCoy was racing for Sickbay.

The bridge crew exchanged worried, apprehensive looks. Spock somewhat reluctantly resumed command until Jim was back on his feet; if he got back on his feet. Doctor McCoy had not been encouraging on that score. Spock would later discover that Doctor McCoy's default state was one of cynical pessimism. He would rather not have resumed command, but there was no one senior enough in the chain of command to take over in Kirk's stead that had any command training at all. Nyota came closest but her experience with command was limited to her fellow Communications specialists.

Spock spent the rest of the day doing what he could to secure all stations possible aboard ship, get at least an initial estimate on the damage done, and what of that damage could be repaired en route to Spacedock. With that accomplished, he headed for Sickbay, both to ascertain the medical status of their Vulcan passengers and to discover what he could of Jim's welfare.


	3. Taking Charge

**Chapter Three**

"A cracked jaw, ulna, three shattered ribs, and two broken ones." Bones ranted, poking a hypospray into Spock's chest, fire in his eye. "You're just lucky his throat wasn't crushed, you green-blooded bastard, or I'd've had you thrown in the Brig."

It was taking all of Bones' restraint not to take a swing at the smug Vulcan bastard. Only his awareness that Spock's entire world, literally, had been ripped out from underneath him allowed him to keep his Hippocratic Oath. Normally, it wouldn't have been such a problem but Bones had a soft spot for Jim. That Jim had damn near died on the operating table thanks to internal bleeding, external blood loss, and shock had destroyed most of his restraint. That Spock was directly, personally responsible for at least some of the damage that Bones had rattled off and indirectly responsible for what he hadn't listed just made it worse.

"My fault, Bones."

The hoarse, cracked, exhausted voice coming from the bed behind him had Bones forgetting that Spock existed. He whipped around.

"Jim! Damn and blast it, man, are you trying to put me in an early grave?" He ranted. He grabbed a diagnostic unit. "Stop trying to get up, you idiot. You're not moving from there until I'm good and ready to let you."

Jim, predictably, ignored him and tried to get up anyway. He promptly stopped and collapsed back into the bed in response to the pain Bones knew he was feeling. Bones gave him a dirty look and ran the scanner over him. The data that scrolled across the screen let Bones breathe a sigh of relief. Everything was mending as it should. With Jim's rather fucked up body, that was not an automatic given.

That would be why Bones has a soft spot for Jim. He'd ended up becoming Jim's physician of choice more by accident than design. They'd managed to get a room together since Jim had wanted no part of the kids his age, for reasons Bones hadn't understood at the time. He hadn't realized that Jim was THAT Kirk yet. For himself, Bones hadn't wanted any part of the infants either. Jim was still nearly a decade younger than he was, but dammit it was better than having some fresh-from-high-school teenybopper in his room by quite a margin. Even that early in their acquaintance, Bones had recognized a maturity and gravity in Jim that most people his age didn't have.

Of course, Jim had been damn good at pretending he was an infant, those first months. Once he'd realized who Jim was, Bones had been heartily amused by the swathe of destruction Jim left in his wake at the Academy. It had been one of those incidents, that had ended in broken knuckles, that had started things. Jim had refused to go to Medical and Bones had fussed at him while fixing his hand. After that, it snowballed.

But the more Bones had done for Jim medically, the more he'd learned about Jim. Jim never, ever spoke of his home life. He called his brother religiously every month but Winona was never spoken of by either of the boys. The scans Bones had to do in the course of treating Jim had revealed a laundry list of lingering problems from a tetchy immune system to faint, lingering signs of starvation.

Starvation being a problem that was all but unheard of in the Federation, especially for Starfleet dependents, it hadn't taken Bones long to put the pieces together and figure out where and why Jim had suffered from starvation. He'd been horrified and very confused. There should have been something in Jim's file, even if it was redacted and restricted to hell and gone. But there was nothing. Bones later realized that Jim must have deleted the information. He certainly had the hacking skills to manage it.

Bones had considered broaching the subject, if only in the sense of making Jim aware of issues he'd need to keep an eye out for. Then Bones realized that Jim was fully aware of those issues. Jim's zealous, almost obsessive attention to his diet and physical fitness suddenly made more sense. If Bones had become a bit more protective of Jim after he'd figured it out, neither of them mentioned it. Jim had put him down as his preferred physician and that was the end of it.

"And what the fuck do you mean it's your fault?" Bones continued his rant. "I didn't see you ask to get beat three-fourths to death."

"Sort of did." Jim rasped.

"Shut up, infant." Bones snapped. "And go back to sleep before I hypo you."

"Yes mom." Jim snarked, proving beyond any doubt that he was back on the mend and would be annoying the hell out of Bones in short order.

Bones rolled his eyes and waved the hypo at Jim in silent threat, but Jim's eyes had already slid closed again. Only then did Bones' attention return to the green-blooded hobgoblin he'd been ranting at before Jim woke up.

Bones wasn't going to pretend to be any great shakes at reading Vulcan expressions but even to him, Spock looked ... disconcerted Bones supposed.

"He will recover?" Spock asked.

No thanks to you, Bones didn't say. "Yeah. He'll be out of that bed and running around the ship come morning."

Against medical advice of course, but Bones had long since learned the folly of trying to keep Jim in a sickbay bed once he was capable of moving. Unless Bones kept him unconscious, there was no hope whatsoever of keeping Jim where he belonged. The best Bones could do would be to stealth-hypo the little bastard with pain relievers and sleep aids at odd intervals.

"How is Captain Pike?" Spock asked.

"Stable, for now." Bones said, accepting the subject change. "We need to get him to a specialist though. The damage to his spine is beyond my ability to deal with, especially with the damage done to Sickbay."

He motioned to the burnt-out main room behind them, currently being used for triage purposes as the crew and their unexpected passengers got checked over. Jim had been tucked in a small side room while he recovered as his injuries had been so severe. Pike was in the room next to him and the other small side rooms were all full as well, holding the other severe cases that Bones had managed to make it to in time to save. There'd been a lot of them he hadn't.

Now was not the time to think about that, however. Now was the time to think of other things. Like helping the ones he HAD been able to save. "They going to need anything special?" He asked, indicating the small knot of Vulcan elders.

Spock shook his head. "Merely somewhere relatively quiet to meditate." He said.

Bones grimaced. "Good luck finding that." He groused. He actually meant it. Anything approaching peace and quiet would be rather hard to find aboard the ship for a long while to come.

Jim woke the next morning to a lot of pain but less than he'd felt the first time he'd woken up. He glowered at the ceiling for a minute as he tried to convince his rebelling body to get the hell up. Before he managed that, Bones walked in, a tray in hand.

"Quit faking, Jim. I know you're awake." Bones growled.

Jim snorted, but pushed himself into a sitting position, wincing as every muscle, bone, and sinew protested. "Love you too, Bones." He growled. Well, at least it was an improvement on the hoarse rasp from the first time he'd woken. It would probably be a couple days before his voice returned to normal.

"Eat." Bones commanded, putting the tray in his lap.

Fortunately, it was all liquid, which Jim approved of under the circumstances even if he was more than slightly suspicious as to the actual contents. It didn't stop him from drinking it all down. He and Bones had an unstated agreement between them. Bones wouldn't try to force Jim to stay in bed once he was mobile after a major injury and Jim wouldn't bitch (too much) when he inevitably got hypo'd or otherwise medicated to make him rest.

"The ship?" Jim asked once he'd finished. The liquid had the side benefit of smoothing out a bit more of the growl in his voice.

"Holding together, mostly by the grace of that insane Scots' efforts and that bloody hobgoblin's demands." Bones groused. "The Admiralty's been howling for you. I told 'em to stuff it and they weren't talking to you until I said you were fit for it."

Jim snickered. That had to have been an interesting conversation. "Thanks, Bones." And yup, the liquid had been dosed with something because the pain was starting to fade. God bless Bones. "I better get going." He had a lot to do. But first ... "Pike?"

"Stable, needs a specialist to deal with the damage done to his spine by that bloody creature those Romulan bastards shoved in him." Bones said. "But he's otherwise in good condition."

That was good news. Jim slowly swung his legs off the bed and tested his feet, gratified to find himself remarkably stable despite the damage he'd suffered and the effort to fix that damage.

"My quarters are down the corridor to the right. Go get a shower Jim, and borrow one of my uniforms." Bones said.

That sounded like a very, very good idea. Fortunately, he and Bones were basically the same size in both height and weight, so the borrowed uniform would fit him well.

"And for god's sake, take this." Bones said, handing over a small device.

Jim breathed a sigh of relief at seeing it. Things had been so crazy that he hadn't had his on hand, but Bones always had multiple spares on him. The little device allowed him to get his (carefully watched) diet from any replicator since Jim didn't always have access to replicators he'd programmed himself. He pocketed it with a nod of thanks to Bones.

The trip to Bones' quarters went quickly enough and the shower was damn near orgasmic. Jim felt a lot more human once he'd changed into a clean uniform. With that done, Jim scrubbed a hand through his hair before he headed for the bridge.

The bridge, when he got there, was a hive of activity. There were a couple of engineers working on the cracked viewscreen, making sure it would still work correctly and would not crack further, thereby exposing the bridge to vacuum. Several other stations were being worked on as well. Apparently, some of the electronics had given out under the strain when they'd been trying to escape the black hole and then riding the explosion to safety.

Spock was, interestingly, sitting at the science station rather than the captain's chair. Jim cocked an eyebrow at him but didn't get a chance to say anything right away, as the rest of the bridge crew realized he'd shown up.

"Kirk!" Uhura snapped as she stalked over, looking for all the world like she wanted to punch his lights out.

Of course she'd be the one to get to him first, Jim thought with amusement. "Uhura." He was badly tempted to call her by her first name but figured that might be pushing his luck a little too far.

Uhura slapped him on the arm, rather more gently than she normally would. "You're an idiot."

Jim grinned at her. "I thought you already knew that about me?" He asked, which earned him an eyeroll.

Then Sulu and Chekov were on him. Jim grinned at Sulu and gripped his arm. Sulu was his sort of crazy bastard and Jim had a feeling they'd get along pretty well. Chekov, on the other hand, Jim just wanted to pet. The kid reminded him of a puppy. It was rather deceptive, because Starfleet didn't really DO puppies and something told Jim that Chekov took advantage of that perception of him rather frequently.

"Damage report." Jim said, getting everyone back to concentrating on business.

The news wasn't good. They had no warp capability at all, of course. The impulse engines were intact and working at full capacity but that was about the only mercy to be seen. Fully half the ship was damaged to some extent. Some of it was actually exposed to vacuum though the emergency forcefields and bulkheads were all holding, thanks be. Scotty, bless him, already had repair crews on the most critical repairs that could be managed in space.

On top of that, Jim discovered he'd had a lot of calls. Most from the admiralty, a few from the captains of the ships in the Laurentian system offering what support and supplies they could spare to the beleaguered Enterprise. The rest were from the paparazzi, looking for sound bites.

Jim thought for a minute and then glanced over at Spock. "The Vulcans aboard need anything?" He asked.

"No. They have all they require." Spock said.

Yeah, Jim was calling bullshit on that one. "Uhura, ignore any incoming from the press. Clear a channel for the Vulcan elders to use. They're probably going to need to be making a lot of calls." Finding out how many of their people were alive and how many, if any, had escaped Vulcan.

"Then start getting the captains on the horn. We need to get supplies lined up before I start making Admirals cry." Jim wondered how many of them realized he meant that more or less literally. Uhura, for certain. Spock had probably caught a clue too, after the last couple days. "Spock, how long will it take us to get to Earth?"

"Fifteen days, nine hours, twenty-seven minutes at current speeds, Captain." Spock responded near-instantly.

Jim nodded. "Then I want enough supplies lined up and on this ship for a full month." He said. "Uhura, any of the captains offering medical crew? That's a rather urgent concern."

Uhura nodded. "Four ships have offered some of their medical staff. Mostly nurses, but two full doctors have also volunteered. One of them, M'benga, is an expert on Vulcans and his ship is already en-route."

Jim was going to kiss someone. Bones was damn good but they really, really needed a Vulcan specialist right now. "Excellent." He said. "When's it arriving?"

"Tomorrow morning at 0500." Uhura said. "Three others will be arriving later in the day with volunteered supplies."

Jim nodded. "Make sure you make a note of what each ship is bringing against what we need." He said. "And keep me updated. Oh, and get one of them to stop by Delta Vega, would you? There's folks there that are going to need to be picked up."

Uhura nodded. "Yes Captain."

That dealt with, Jim turned his attention to the inevitable confrontation. This was going to be fun. "With that taken care of ... it's time to hail the Admiralty."

Uhura gave him a look that said clear as day 'Your funeral', but she obeyed.

"Just what the hell do you think you're playing at Kirk? You're on academic suspension! You shouldn't even be ON a ship!"

The words were bellowed at truly awe-inspiring volume, Jim reflected. The admiral doing the yelling was a heavy-set, round-faced man who probably hadn't seen anything more strenuous than the walk from bedroom to bathroom in a few decades. It took Jim a few moments to remember his name. Komack, that was it.

"Medical Code." Jim answered him cheerily, showing a few too many teeth in his smile. "Doctor McCoy will be only too happy to confirm." Behind him, he heard a very faint noise from Uhura's general direction.

"Don't give me that crap, Kirk. I know McCoy's your lapdog." Komack fairly snarled.

Jim barely batted an eyebrow. "I'm sorry. I must have misheard. I could swear I just heard you malign one of the best general practitioners to pass through Starfleet's doors in the last decade *and* my attending physician of record. I would hate for the Medical Board to get all riled up over an accidental misstatement."

Jim knew he had the bastard over a barrel. The Starfleet Medical Board took an extremely dim view of their accredited physicians being wrongly accused of anything. Better, Komack didn't have a chance in hell of actually proving his accusation and they both knew it.

"Fine, so that's how you got aboard." Komack growled. "Explain what the hell you're doing playing at being Captain."

"I was elevated to second in command by Captain Pike." Jim said. "Ensign Sulu and Commander Spock can both confirm this, since Captain Pike himself is not currently able to verify. Subsequent to that decision, Commander Spock became compromised by the mission at hand and pursuant to regulation six-one-nine relinquished command."

"And just how did Commander Spock become compromised?" Komack demanded.

Jim saw red. "He snorted pixie dust and started muttering about pink elephants. How the hell do you *think* he became compromised, you heartless bastard? Now, are you going to ask any relevant questions or are you just going to continue wasting my increasingly valuable time? I have a ship to run."

Fortunately for both their sakes, the other admirals, who had given Komack shocked, disapproving, and downright angry looks for that last question, intervened. One of the female admirals (Jim couldn't remember her name) spoke up.

"I think we could all do with a rundown of events." She said.

Jim nodded in agreement, and gave them as accurate a rundown as he could, from the moment he'd realized he was not assigned a ship until it was finally all over. Mind you, he did alter a few things. Like the fact that Bones had induced his sickness. Jim made it sound like he'd managed to trigger his allergies all on his own. Thank the gods that his allergy was all over his records. Being allergic to a compound that was found in certain bioengineered grains and was a very common component of hyposprays sucked, but it also made it easy to say you'd accidentally run into something that had that component. That he'd had an incident or two in the Academy simply lent verisimilitude to his lie.

The other thing Jim lied like a rug about was Spock's breakdown. Even with Regulation Six-One-Nine having been invoked, Spock essentially trying to kill Jim would *not* go down well and could easily tank Spock's career. Kirk planned to wipe all evidence that happened from the computers and have a few words with the bridge crew to make sure none of them squealed. And then, if necessary, browbeat Spock until he caved and didn't mention it to the Admiralty himself.

For a wonder, the admirals let him get through the report without interrupting with questions. That said, once he'd gotten to the end of the report, they had questions aplenty: some for him, some for those of the bridge crew who'd been up to their ears in the events. When they were finally mostly satisfied the meeting turned to other matters. Mostly, what Jim needed to get back to Spacedock in one piece.

Right off the bat, Jim got some friction. Mostly over his insistence on having way more surplus in the food supplies than the Admiralty thought he would need. Jim put his foot down.

"We have no way of predicting if we're going to actually make it to Spacedock in two weeks." Jim told them. "As banged up as this ship got, we could easily temporarily lose impulse engines at some point or have a cascade failure that means we can't go anywhere at all and have to wait for an available ship to tow us back. I'm not going to order fifteen days' worth of consumables and pray. I'm going to plan and stock up for a worst-case scenario. Whether you like it or not."

Thankfully, most of the admirals saw the wisdom of that (given the shape the ship was currently in) and didn't push any harder. Komack and the couple of other holdouts got shut down by the admirals that agreed with Jim.

There was some discussion over whether or not to medevac Pike or not. Jim called Bones and let him hash that out with the admirals, since Bones knew far better than he did whether it was a good idea. In the end, it was decided to keep Pike on the Enterprise, as moving him could easily do more damage than could be fixed at a better equipped facility. That decided, the Admiralty was only too happy to send the best neurology specialists they had and whatever equipment they felt they would need that was transportable. A second, more experienced doctor with knowledge of Vulcan biology was also being sent to back up M'benga just in case. He'd be arriving with a load of medical equipment to replace some of what got wrecked when Sickbay got hit.

Finally, they were done with the Admiralty and Uhura shut down the comm. Jim breathed a silent sigh of relief.

Jim turned towards the turbolift. "If anything else comes up, comm me. I'll be somewhere helping with repairs." He said before he marched off the bridge.

Spock watched Jim leave with carefully hidden baffled confusion. It was becoming clearer to him by the moment that he had been operating with not only an incomplete dataset where Jim was concerned, but the completely wrong dataset. He was going to have to get his hands on the correct data. Hopefully then the human would be a bit less bewildering.

Jim had marched onto the bridge and taken command like he'd been a Captain for years. There was none of the uncertainty or lack of confidence Spock had seen and come to expect from newly minted captains. And those men and women had been Starfleet officers for years. By all rights, a cadet who hadn't even graduated yet should be an incoherent mess when thrust into command. Jim should not have been able to think of and demand some of the supplies he had requisitioned from the Admiralty. Not because he was an idiot, but simply because they were the sorts of things only an experienced commander would think of.

Really, the only thing that hadn't surprised Spock was Jim being able to argue the Admiralty into silence on any matter they disagreed on. That, and his angry disrespect to Admiral Komack. That one such incident had been on Spock's behalf, however, had confused Spock. Yes, they had worked in concert on the Narada but Spock had not expected Jim to come to his defense.

And then there was the blatantly fraudulent account of the events on the bridge surrounding Spock's being compromised. Spock fully intended to discover why Jim had lied about that as soon as possible and then correct Starfleet's misapprehensions. It was added to the ever-growing list of things he needed to do as soon as there was time and opportunity.

Spock spent most of the rest of that shift assisting in repairing the bridge's systems and ensuring that the science station's sensors were properly calibrated after most of the station's components had been repaired. Once his shift was over, he headed to the Science department to ensure that all was well there. Most of the alpha shift bridge crew also scattered in every direction, with the clear intent to assist with repairs.

The various labs in the Science Department had, thanks be, suffered little damage. Granted, this was mostly because the labs had not been fully outfitted yet. The Enterprise, after all, had not been scheduled to have her maiden voyage for several months yet, after the next class of cadets graduated in late June. All of her vital systems had been fully online and outfitted but things like the labs hadn't, since they weren't critical to the ship's operation.

Once Spock had ensured the welfare of his department, he stopped by the quarters assigned to the Vulcan Elders. He doubted they had (or would admit to) any further needs, but it was logical to be sure. If he drew some shred of reassurance from seeing his father before he retired for the evening, it would be his secret.

As predicted, the Elders had no further need. Sarek, however, quietly drew him aside for a few moments. Neither of them said anything. They simply kept each other company for a few minutes, wordlessly grieving Amanda's loss. After a few moments, Spock nodded, shared an understanding look with his father, and left for his own quarters.

Spock entered his own quarters and immediately gathered the necessary accoutrements for his evening ablutions. His hands hesitated minutely before he picked up his sleeping robe, now one of the pitifully few remnants of anything Vulcan.

Distantly, he wondered if the near-crippling grief that kept ambushing him at odd moments would ever ease. Academically, he knew it would but for once in his life, academics and scientific fact were absolutely no comfort whatever. Deliberately, he completely ignored the drawer that held a number of his mother's handmade sweaters. He was not going to subject himself to that anytime soon.

Even the sonic shower was no real comfort as some corner of his mind was aware that some of the grime being cleaned off his body was dust and grit he'd accumulated on his brief trip to Vulcan. He finished, grateful he would finally have the time to do something about his mental state.

It took Spock over an hour to accomplish something that even pretended to be meditation. He kept getting sidetracked by errant thoughts and ambushed by waves of emotion that made it difficult to achieve the necessary mental state.

When he was finally able to settle, the damage to his mindscape was every bit as bad as he'd anticipated. The once orderly, organized expanse looked like a particularly large sandstorm had torn through it. Spock began to clean up the mess, tucking bits of memories and information back into their appropriate slots.

He saved the tangled, severed remains of the various bonds he'd once had until last. What had once been a complex, expansive web had been reduced to a few pathetic strands. At that, Spock was fortunate because the bonds he'd had were almost all secondhand through his bond with Sarek. Unlike normal Vulcan youths, he had not developed friendships - and as a result, mental bonds - with anyone outside of his immediate family. Nor did he have a mate.

Spock wondered if that had been the unifying theme of those who had managed to stay on their feet in the wake of Vulcan's destruction ... distance. The elders had been cushioned, distanced by the mental presences of multiple katras. The few Kolinahr Adepts and Gol Masters had, as that discipline demanded, long since severed all mental ties to others. Perhaps the rest of those that had stayed on their feet had been like himself - with few close bonds to rip their minds to shreds.

It was not until Spock had begun trying to put the mess to rights that he stumbled across something that should not have been there. It was a bond - one that Spock did not remember creating. It was also very new, gossamer thin, and barely discernable from the background of Spock's mind. Mentally, he frowned at it before touching it.

Faintly, dimly, he got a flash of a mental presence; a distinctly non-Vulcan mental presence. There had been only one non-Vulcan that Spock had been in anything like a position to form a bond with. Well, that would definitely explain the otherwise baffling synchronicity he had experienced with Jim aboard the Narada. Clearly they had been picking up on each other's thoughts and impressions through the bond.

Spock was honestly horrified at himself. Creating any sort of bond with someone else was not done idly. It was also never, ever done without their express permission and knowledge. Forcing a bond like this was one of the biggest crimes a Vulcan could commit. The fact the bond had been formed accidentally was cold comfort indeed. Even accidentally violating another's mental privacy without permission was anathema to Vulcans. That was why they avoided physical contact wherever possible: it was far too easy, with many races, to pick up on thoughts and feelings with even the briefest of skin-to-skin contact.

Spock pulled out of his meditation, staring at the far wall in perturbed contemplation. He would contact his father in a few hours. Sarek would know how to sever the bond and would not condemn Spock as harshly as most of the other elders would. They would see it as yet another example of Spock's inherent inferiority. Sarek would be far more inclined to see it as what it was - the accidental result of a mind under extreme amounts of psychic trauma.

If it were not the very early hours of the morning (the chronometer indicated it was 0210) Spock would have gone to his father immediately for assistance in severing the inadvertent bond. As the hour was what it was, Spock could wait four hours for his father to rise from his slumber, if he'd slept at all. Given recent events, that was not at all guaranteed.

After a few more moments, Spock rose smoothly from his meditation mat and retired to his bed. Despite (more likely because of) his meditation, sleep proved elusive for approximately another hour before he finally succumbed.

Perhaps that was why Spock slept through his alarm the first time it rang. He had not done so since he was a toddler. Indeed, he had not required an alarm at all throughout most of his teen and adult years. He had merely continued the practice as a precaution. At any rate, he did not wake until his alarm went off a second time, much more loudly than the first.

He was very put out at his apparent laziness, and was very rushed in performing his usual morning chores before he began the day. Just as he was finishing his preparations, the comm bleated.

"Spock, the Intrepid will be here in five minutes with M'benga, the other sickbay staff, and whatever else they're donating. I'd like for you to be in transporter room two to greet M'benga." Jim said.

"That is logical." Spock agreed. He was far more familiar with the Elders than anyone on the ship and would at the very least be able to brief M'benga on names and ages. He would also be able to forewarn M'benga that he was going to run into some very atypical brainwave patterns when he examined the elders and that some of it was completely normal and nothing to be alarmed about, given they were hosting multiple katras. It would assist the doctor in ascertaining which of the atypical readings were the result of psychic trauma.

Spock smoothed his tunic down one last time and made his way swiftly to transporter room two. His resolution to seek out his father to deal with the inadvertent bond was completely forgotten.


	4. Week One

**Day 3 Post-Narada**

Jim nodded to Spock when the latter arrived in Transporter Room Two. Today promised to be a hectic day - as did the next few. They'd be constantly on the hop while the rest of the fleet brought supplies and replacement personnel.

He ignored Bones' nearly sub-vocal growl directed at Spock. Jim knew Bones was still very unhappy with Spock. If it went beyond glares and sub-vocal growls, Jim would do something. Until then it was really best to let Bones get it out of his system. He'd calm down in a few days.

Scotty had opted not to supervise and organize the transportation and allocation of materials needed for repairs. He felt he would be needed to supervise (and in more than one case, personally improvise) the actual repairs. Given how badly damaged much of the ship was, Jim hadn't argued with him. Scotty had sent two of the more senior engineers remaining in his stead. One went to Transporter Room Two to deal with the smaller shipments, the other to the cargo bay that would be dealing with the larger stuff.

"Captain, the first ship is in transporter range and ready to begin." Uhura informed them through the comm.

"That's the one with M'benga aboard, right?" Jim double-checked. That had been the case yesterday but it was always possible that that ship had had an unexpected problem, or had been temporarily diverted unexpectedly or some such.

"Correct." Uhura confirmed.

"Excellent." Jim said, breathing a sigh of relief. The neurology specialist would be arriving later in the day, further relieving Jim's concerns on the medical end of things. Jim nodded to the man at the transporter controls. "Energize."

Thus began a very long day. Jim quickly realized that it could have been a lot worse. Scotty's representative had organized a frighteningly efficient relay team for the supplies, ensuring the platform was emptied almost as fast as it was filled. There was a similar team dealing with the bulk supplies that were being transported to the cargo bay.

That meant there weren't any delays and snags on that end, which helped keep tempers on a fairly even keel. Sadly, there was nothing that could speed up the process of getting people aboard. Nor one that would spare Jim from the necessary glad-handing that came with it.

Thank whatever deities existed, the vast majority of the personnel coming aboard were more interested in getting the necessary greeting protocol over with as fast and efficiently as possible. They were there to help the beleaguered Enterprise. Showering Jim and the Enterprise's crew in accolades for their feat would only waste valuable time. Only one or two seemed to want to fanboy all over him, and he was legitimately able to cut them off at the knees (politely) in the interest of getting things done. He did miss Bones and Spock's presences after a while. Both of them had escorted M'Benga to the infirmary. Bones to handle the medical end, Spock to fill M'Benga in on the rest.

That thought made Jim cringe repeatedly throughout the day. Despite knowing it wouldn't have changed a damn thing, he couldn't help but wish things had happened differently on that drill. He actively cursed their idiotic third on more than one occasion. He was so angry at the man he deliberately forgot his name. The idiot didn't *deserve* a proper, respectful remembrance.

That had been the worst possible time to act like an immature adrenaline junkie, or whatever the hell had been the man's problem. Jim was aware he was being a bit of a hypocrite thinking like that. Only a bit, though. He'd acted like an idiot sometimes, but he'd never done so when other peoples' lives had been in the balance.

Jim made sure there were meal breaks ... and did what he could to enforce them. It really mostly amounted to heading to Sickbay to forcibly pull Bones away from his patients after making a general announcement to the crew. Some people might think it odd that Jim was forcibly putting his foot down about meal and rest breaks, but he knew better than most that not eating and resting would just end up making matters a whole hell of a lot worse. Tired, hungry people made mistakes.

Spock was still in Sickbay when Jim walked in. He and M'benga were quietly talking to the elder that had called Spock off when he'd gone ape shit. Jim walked over. He was going to have to apologize for that shit on the bridge. He'd hated doing it. He was damn near as tetchy about George as Spock seemed to be about his mother, so he was well aware of just how low a blow he'd aimed.

Jim nodded respectfully as he approached and tried to give the ta'al, tried being the operative word. He sort of managed it but it looked a bit pathetic and shaky: his fingers weren't spread as widely as they should have been, and were trembling with the effort of staying in position. He'd have to work on that.

"Sir." He greeted the elder. "Doctor. Spock."

"Captain." Spock greeted. "I would make known to you Ambassador Sarek, my father. Father, this is Captain James Kirk."

Ohhhhhhhh, shit. Not good. So very not good. Not only had Jim been insulting Spock's mother to *his* face, but to her husband's. How had he managed to walk off that bridge alive, again?

"Ambassador." Jim said before he glanced at Spock. "I owe you both an apology. My words on the bridge were completely uncalled for."

Father and son shared a look that almost looked amused to Jim's unpracticed eye. Sarek then looked back at him. "No apology is necessary, Captain Kirk. I was immediately aware of your purpose when you began to berate Spock. It was clear to me that you were not in earnest. You were doing what was logical, if in a typically illogical human fashion."

"It was clear to me instantaneously as well." Spock admitted. "The very fact you succeeded in your goading proved you correct; though I was being ... illogical ... enough to deny it."

That admittance seemed to actively pain Spock. Jim wanted to object and protest that regardless of his purpose in insulting Spock and his mother, it had been beyond uncalled for. Sadly, he knew that such protestations would fall on deaf ears. Somewhat reluctantly, Jim let it go.

"Spock, have you eaten since this morning?" Jim wanted to know.

"No I have not." Spock said. "However, I found the argument inherent in your announcement quite logical and was in the process of inviting Doctor M'benga and my father to join me for lunch."

Jim nodded. "Cool. I'll go drag Bones away from whatever he's doing. If I don't, he'll find one excuse after another to not eat or sleep until he drops."

Jim had seen that happen once, when there'd been a rather nasty shuttle accident with a lot of badly injured survivors. Bones had worked his ass off for something like three days straight with little more than bathroom breaks and lots of water. He'd also collapsed at the end of that stretch and had taken a full week to recover. After that, Jim had kept an eye on Bones whenever there was an emergency.

Starfleet HQ Day 4

The Admiralty was meeting yet again to try to make some sense out of the mess they'd found themselves in. Really, they hadn't stopped meeting except for meals and sleep since the distress call from Vulcan came in. Those first meetings had had an entirely different tenor than the meetings after Vulcan had been blown up. Now, pretty much the entirety of Alpha and Beta quadrants were either reeling from the attack or in a position to take advantage of the situation. Keeping their collective heads above water was going to take one hell of a lot of maneuvering.

The only break they'd caught was that the Klingons had been hit even worse than Starfleet had. The Klingons had lost over forty ships with all hands. Even the most optimistic estimates of their remaining forces came to less than forty ships: almost all of them cargo haulers of various stripes rather than attack craft. The Klingons still had their up-and-coming crop of cadets but they had lost almost their entire roster of battle-experienced crewmen and captains. It would be at least a decade before they recovered from that loss. Building the ships would take five years at the very least. It'd take another five years beyond that for all the new cadets who would be staffing those ships to gain any kind of experience.

The Admiralty was comprised of twenty Admirals, each one nominally in charge of certain aspects of Starfleet and Federation business. There were more than twenty Admirals in Starfleet of course. Getting into the Admiralty was rather akin to getting into the Senate or House of Lords back in the 20th century. Lots of politicking and glad-handing was involved.

The Admiralty was divided into roughly three groups where James Kirk was concerned. One group felt the boy had no business being in Starfleet. The second group felt that they owed Kirk and humoring him was for the best, lest something highly unpleasant happen. The third and smallest group were, to put it bluntly, fanboys.

Admiral Komack was the leader of the group that wanted Kirk out of Starfleet. He loathed James T. Kirk with every fiber of his being and for a number of reasons. First and foremost being that he did not believe anyone should get into Starfleet on the strength of their daddies' deeds. George Kirk had, Komack was willing to admit, done the nigh-impossible that day aboard the shattered Kelvin. That did not mean James Kirk should get a free ride. That was not Komack's biggest problem with Kirk Junior. Komack's biggest problem with that insubordinate delinquent was Tarsus.

Like most of the existing Admirals, Komack had been an Admiral at the time of the Tarsus IV disaster. He was well aware that Kirk had been on that benighted planet at the time. He was also well aware that every trace of evidence that Kirk had ever been on that planet had disappeared. Hells, even ship's records had been altered to reflect one less survivor than there really was and all mention of George and/or Kirk had been deleted from all records as if such comments had never been made. Komack was still trying to figure out how the bastard managed the feat.

In the wake of the disaster, Komack had been firmly against any of the survivors having any role in Starfleet. All of them were broken, fragile, and untrustworthy. They'd crumple under the strain of any job short of mopping floors.

He'd thrown a conniption fit when Pike had snuck Kirk into the fall semester three years ago. That boy had no business being anywhere near Starfleet, ever. The boy's actions his first year had proven Komack to be entirely correct in his judgment on Kirk's mental stability and suitability for Starfleet. And now the bastard was playing at being Captain of what would be the flagship of the fleet in a few months' time. To say Komack had been frothing at the mouth the last couple days was a vast understatement.

"Any word from the Romulans?" Komack wanted to know the moment everyone had gotten settled.

"Nothing. Not so much as a whisper." Admiral Caliche said. "The ships we scrambled to the Neutral Zone haven't caught a sniff of any activity, not that there would be much of a tell-tale with their cloaking technology. There have been no attempts at communication, either. At least not yet."

From the looks on everyone's faces, the lack of response from that quarter was making them all twitchy. Komack knew he would much prefer for the bastards to do or say something, for good or ill, rather than this ominous silence.

"And the brat?" He wanted to know.

Admiral Caliche glared at Komack. Really, was he *trying* to get them all in even more trouble than they already were?

Caliche was the leader of the 'humor Kirk' group. She had also been in the Admiralty at the time of the Tarsus incident. She hadn't been any more pleased at James Kirk joining Starfleet than Komack but for entirely different reasons. She knew full well that Kirk had a legitimate axe to grind with Starfleet in general and the Admiralty in particular both over that snafu and ... other things. It was hard to misunderstand the truth of the matter when a certain Commander Kirk had spent a grand total of two years Earth-side during her childrens' childhoods after the death of George Kirk. And that the Commander had had no contact with either son in the last decade-and-a-half.

Caliche, a mother of two sons herself, couldn't even begin to come up with any circumstance that would get her to cut her boys out of her life in such a manner. As a result, she had been the strongest proponent of ... limiting ... the Commander's career. She would never attain Captaincy at least not as long as Caliche had anything to say in the matter. There were days when Caliche wanted to drum the woman out of her position as Head of the Science Department aboard her current ship.

Caliche felt that having someone sign up for Starfleet with that big a chip on their shoulder about the organization was a very bad idea. Even when James' actions on Tarsus made it clear that he could be an incredible leader given half a chance. Firstly, Kirk was going to be very unlikely to toe the line since he had no real respect for Starfleet. Secondly the young man had more than enough ammunition against them to bring Starfleet to its knees. Worse, James had the temper and strength of will to actually follow through with such a threat. He also had the charisma needed to rally people to his cause, above and beyond the collection of people he'd be able to rally by virtue of being the son of Starfleet's most revered hero.

"Komack, if you can't say something constructive do us all a favor and be silent." Caliche snapped. "Just in case you missed it, Acting Captain Kirk saved *billions* of lives the other day. And that was just here on Earth. I have little doubt that madman would have attempted to do to more planets what he did to Vulcan." Caliche wasn't the only one to shudder in horror at that idea. "We owe him gratitude, not gratuitous vitriol."

The majority of the rest of the Admiralty was nodding or voicing agreement with her, which seemed to shut Komack up for the moment. Nevertheless, Caliche decided to keep a careful eye on the members who didn't look any too happy with Kirk at the moment. She wouldn't put it past one or more of them to try something. Doing so would end VERY badly for them. The entirety of the Federation seemed to be singing Kirk's praises at the moment, and any action against him would result in a lot of problems, to put it mildly.

"At any rate, young Kirk seems to be doing an admirable job at the moment. The reports I've gotten thus far from the captains that have spoken with him have nothing but good things to say. He seems to be firm but polite, has a good grasp of what the ship needs as regards supplies for the remaining trip and repairs, and seems to be managing without floundering." Caliche said.

Several of the other Admirals nodded in agreement, having gotten similar reports from the captains that they had spoken to. "From what I've heard, he seems to have taken command like he was born to it." One of the other Admirals commented. "The volunteer crewmen aboard that have reported in to their original captains all say basically the same thing ... that Kirk can usually be found belly-deep in some panel helping fix wiring or what have you, rather than sitting on his ass on the bridge. That he chases everyone off shift at least once a day, reminding them that working around the clock does no one any favors. The bridge crew all seem to be doing much the same as Kirk. I wouldn't be surprised to discover that ship was largely patched back together by the time they get back here. They can't do anything about the holes blown in her, the external cracks in the superstructure, or the warp core but I'll bet most everything else is fixed."

That got a few laughs. "With that insane Scot aboard her? You won't see me betting against you." A fourth Admiral laughed. "I'm just glad Archer retired after he kicked that man out to Delta Vega because he'd be throwing a fit if he knew about this. And I'll not be the one to tell him!"

Day 5, Qo'noS

High Chancellor Maktor watched as the lesser Councilors arrived, all of them showing signs of mourning. There was not a single Great House that had not lost at least five members in the attempt to blow that Romulan ship to smithereens. He himself had lost two sons, three brothers, and six nephews. Only his sister, her children, and his and his brothers' youngest children had been spared.

The entire Empire was screaming for blood: Romulan blood to be precise. Some few had armed what cargo ships their Houses owned and set out to wash the galaxy in green blood. Maktor wished them well in their quest but given the ships and warriors they had to work with, he knew it would not go well for them.

Losing forty-seven battleships with all hands aboard had been a catastrophic loss for the Empire. That had been the bulk of their armada. Only a dozen ships, all of them old and technologically inferior to the ships of their rivals and enemies remained. The only good news was that the Empire's cargo ships remained and could be refitted. Unfortunately, that was going to be a stopgap measure at best. Refitted cargo ships were a poor replacement for true battleships in a fight. And that said nothing of the crews of those ships. Cargo crews were inferior. Not quite cowards, weaklings, and quislings but close enough. If they were true warriors, they would have been on warships. Replacement warrior crews were nigh on nonexistent thanks to the battle.

Maktor knew the Empire would be ... vulnerable ... for the best part of a decade. They had resources enough to repair their existing fleet, and to build a few new ships each year to replace ships lost to battle. They did not have anywhere near enough resources to replace forty-seven ships anytime soon. Equally, it would take time to replace the lost crews.

Until they managed that, the Empire would be more vulnerable than it had been at any time in its glorious history. They would have virtually no space armada to speak of. That meant that the many colony worlds would essentially be on their own. Klingons were a proud and fierce people but Maktor knew that would not be enough if a colony world was attacked before they managed to rebuild their armada.

Worse, the more aggressive races in Alpha and Beta quadrant either already knew or would soon discover how vulnerable the Empire had become. Many of them would be inclined to take advantage of that fact. Which meant that, without some sort of alliance, the Empire could conceivably be torn to shreds before they could mount any sort of offensive. Unfortunately, the Empire had little in the way of allies; none, really. They were warriors first and foremost, which meant conquering and subjugating, not befriending. The only place they had utterly failed in that regard ... was now the one place they would have to turn for assistance.

The Empire's relationship with the Federation had always been ... contentious. Klingons were warriors to the marrow of their bones and beyond. They also revered family above everything short of their sense of honor. The cultural differences between Klingons and Humans had ensured that the first meeting of those two races would not go well. Things had escalated to open war pretty quickly before some sort of grudging understanding of their differences had been obtained. At that point, the two powers had agreed to put as much distance between their peoples as possible. While there had been a few confrontations since the establishment of the Neutral Zone, the two powers had mostly settled for a chilly, stiff, suspicious armed peace.

Things had altered a bit when the Narada first arrived. George Kirk's actions that day had gone a long way to opening a number of Klingon eyes. To many Klingons, Kirk had elevated himself to near-Klingon levels of bravery and honor. It made quite a few Klingons question the assumption that all Humans were honorless cowards. In the years since, relations between the Empire and the Federation had become slightly less fraught with tension.

That did not mean that this would be easy. Maktor knew that most of the Councilors would sneer at the idea of an alliance of any kind. They had done so repeatedly over the years and that had been when the Empire's armada had been at full strength. They would, to a man, die rather than appear weak now. Maktor agreed with that. To appeal to outsiders for protection was anathema. The trick was going to be approaching the Federation from a position of strength of *some* sort, even if it wasn't military strength.

Actually the trick was going to be getting the Councilors to realize they needed to approach the Federation but Maktor knew that would come up eventually. If it did not, Maktor had a few ideas to bring that up and guide them in a ... palatable ... direction.

In the four days since the disaster with the Narada, the entire Empire had been abuzz with talk about the young man who had defeated that fell ship where the entire might of the Klingon Empire had failed. George Kirk's son had avenged his father in a manner so Klingon it was breathtaking. If rumors were to be believed, the young warrior had even arranged for a Klingon-style promotion for himself by challenging and defeating the existing captain when that captain showed sufficient weakness. The rest of his crew had been equally impressive, proving themselves to be the sort of honorable warriors Maktor had never suspected Humans could be.

If they could arrange for the young James Kirk and his crew to come to Q'onoS as Ambassador, there might actually be a possibility of an alliance. At the least, there was a better chance that Kirk and company would understand Klingon ways. That had been the biggest stumbling block between their peoples all those years ago.

All Maktor had to do was get his people to realize an alliance was needed, then get them to realize one might be possible if they got the right people to do the talking between the two sides. That was going to be easy compared to what he'd had to do to rise to the rank of Chancellor.

Day 6, Romulus

To say the Romulan people had been distressed by the appearance of Nero was to vastly understate the case. When Nero and his enormous ship had first appeared twenty-five years ago, the then-Praetor had instantly recalled what few spies lurked outside the Empire. Patrols along their borders had been tripled in anticipation of a retaliatory attack by the Federation.

That no such attack occurred did not soothe paranoid Romulan souls. For twenty-five years, ships had been built and crews trained in anticipation of all-out war. And now, Nero had managed to escape his Klingon captors and had blown up Vulcan.

While the bulk of the Romulan populace cared little for the fate of their cousin-race, they realized that their opinion of Vulcans was not shared by the rest of the Alpha and Beta quadrants in general and most of the Federation in particular. Once again, they were facing the possibility of war.

Already, Federation and Klingon ships had been spotted racing for the borders those peoples shared with the Romulan Empire. Worse, the Klingon ships showed no sign of stopping. The only good news was that the Federations ships seemed to be content, for the moment, with patrolling the border. Also, the Klingon ships were either hastily-refitted cargo ships or old, decrepit warships that belonged in the scrapheap. Neither of which would be a challenge for Romulan warships.

The Senate was meeting to discuss what to do about the situation they found themselves in once again, thanks to Nero. Some few advocated preemptive self-protection - in other words, taking the war to the Federation and the Klingon Empire while both were weak and reeling. Others advocated doing as they had done for the last quarter century and keeping to themselves while preparing for the worst. Some proposed actively speaking out against Nero in various ways, like formally exiling him and his crew. This would let everyone know they had not sent Nero to do what he had done.

"Empty words." The Praetor proclaimed when that suggestion came up. "Useless words. They either know and acknowledge Nero is not of us, or will not. Nothing we say or do in that regard will change their minds. We are Romulans ourselves, and thus suspect."

There was more than a little grumbling, but the Senators eventually had to admit the Praetor had a point. "We are left then with either going to war or remaining within our own territory."

"We will remain." The Praetor commanded. "War will not serve us. The Klingon Empire is weak, yes, and would fall with ease. We have no hope of conquering enough of the Federation fast enough to win that war. With the entirety of Starfleet on the move to monitor our border with them and guard their most precious and vulnerable worlds our chances are even poorer. We will withdraw and maintain silence. Let them have time to forget us and lower their guard. They cannot maintain such a high state of readiness forever. Once they had become complacent and unwary, we will revisit the subject of what our next move shall be."

Day 7, Enterprise

Uhura glanced around the bridge as she arrived for Alpha Shift. She wasn't surprised to see Jim and Spock both already in place, though she herself was a full ten minutes early. Sulu and Chekov would be up here in a couple minutes. Nobody was placing any bets on whether or not Scotty had actually ever left Engineering since he got down there after his arrival on-ship. Uhura for one wasn't about to try to force him out because the man was managing to patch together a stunning amount of the damage done to the ship. Far more than she'd thought would be possible.

Uhura knew that Jim had been forced to drag Leonard out of Sickbay by his uniform collar twice early on but thankfully, the crush in Sickbay had died down. The best news from that quarter was that while he would be in for up to a year of procedures and therapy, Captain Pike would eventually be back to perfect health. According to McCoy, if they'd taken even half an hour longer to get Pike to medical aid Pike would have been permanently paralyzed.

"Uhura!" Jim bounced to his feet the moment he saw her, making Uhura roll her eyes. "What's the scoop for the day?"

He'd asked her that every morning save that first morning after he'd returned from his stint in Sickbay. She knew it was his way of acknowledging the fact that as the current chief communications officer, she got all the off-ship news first. She also had a knack for picking up on all the gossip doing the rounds and being able to separate fact from rumor. Jim was also savvy enough to realize that most people were not going to feel comfortable approaching a senior officer or the captain if there was a problem.

While they didn't really have the 'senior officer' problem with a shipload of cadets, the hesitance to approach the captain definitely applied ... even if he was a raw cadet like the rest of them. The first few days there had actually been even more of a problem over approaching Jim than if he'd been a seasoned captain. Not much of anyone knew how to deal with Jim's sudden promotion. Jim had begun cutting that problem down to size with his constant presence everywhere on the ship *but* the bridge. Even during Alpha Shift, Jim was only on the bridge long enough to make sure everyone arrived and to field any calls from the Admiralty before he disappeared into the bowels of the ship to help fix the damage.

"T'pau managed to finish the census last night. A bit over twelve thousand Vulcans managed to escape the planet. Combined with the Vulcans on colonies, aboard ships, and what have you, the remaining population is just over one hundred thousand." Uhura told him, wishing it was possible to speak quietly enough that Spock would not hear her. Unfortunately, she knew just how good his hearing was. She and Jim would have to be a whole lot further away from Spock than this for him not to overhear them.

That miniscule number broke her heart. A week-and-a-half ago, there had been something like four or five billion Vulcans. How the Vulcans were going to survive long-term, she didn't know. Oh she knew they could resort to any of several means to spread the remaining genes around and prevent inbreeding. The problem lay in the damage done to their culture. They had lost two of their High Council in the race to safety aboard the Enterprise, she knew. And that was a catastrophic loss, not because the Councilors themselves were more important than any other Vulcan, but because they'd been housing who knew how many katras.

Uhura hadn't quite really believed in the whole Vulcan katra thing until several months after she'd begun dating Spock. The subject had come up and he had explained the phenomenon; perhaps not fully, but enough to satisfy her. She still wasn't convinced katras were actual souls but she was willing to allow that they were an information legacy left behind by Vulcans who had enough notice of their impending deaths to prepare that legacy. Losing the knowledge those Councilors possessed *and* the information they'd absorbed from the katra repository was a deeply felt loss for the Vulcan people.

There was also the fact that the odds of the Councilors having had time to empty the repository were nil. That meant that a lot of information had been left in the repository and then destroyed with the planet. This was compounded by the fact that the few ships to get off the planet before it blew had mostly had a skeleton adult crew and had then been crammed with as many kids as possible. Evidently, it was seen as logical to get the children out first. Both because they would have longer to live and repopulate the species and because more of them could fit on any given ship than if that ship had been filled with adults. Uhura couldn't really fault that logic but it had meant that a lot of Vulcan's best minds had perished.

And maybe she was concentrating on Vulcan and the problems Vulcans faced a bit too much. But it was ... easier, really, to concentrate on that than to think about ... If she started thinking about the ships Starfleet had lost and the people who had been on them, she would fall apart. They couldn't afford that. Not now and not for quite a while to come. There would be a time and a place to think about that and to grieve, but this wasn't it. So she thought about and obsessed over Vulcans. It made it a little easier.

"You're probably going to have to add Scotty to your 'drag out by the scruff of his neck' list." Uhura continued. "I don't think he's stopped working since he got down to Engineering after he arrived."

Jim gave an amused snort. "Yeah, I kind of noticed that and forced the issue before I came up here. Bones hypo'd him into compliance when he argued with me."

That made Uhura laugh. Bones was rather infamous for his tendency to hypo people into submission if they fought medical treatment or common sense. Uhura thought it was a bit on the brutal but effective side, and tended to encourage people who'd had to deal with him in the past to not argue with him when they had to deal with him later on. Unless, of course, your name happened to be Jim Kirk in which case you argued with Bones just for shits and giggles.

"Other than that, there's really nothing." Uhura said. "The worst of it's over and done and been rehashed enough for people to have stopped talking about it for the most part. All the critical repairs are finished and have been for two days. Sickbay's down to Pike and a handful of other long-term cases."

Jim nodded. "Great. I'm going to call a meeting for tomorrow after Alpha Shift for the bridge crew, Bones, and Scotty."

Uhura had a feeling she knew what that was about. She'd noticed that the ship's records of the bridge had been tampered with. A certain ... incident ... had been erased and replaced seamlessly with something far less damning and traumatic. Uhura even had a good idea of why Jim had done it. That was why she was saying nothing and had made sure that none of her private notes had any reference to the event.

"We do need to plan." She agreed. "It's going to be a madhouse on Earth. Every reporter on the planet is going to want a piece of us and even if Starfleet tries to ban them, they'll just talk to people who knew us and dig into our records and fun things like that ... provided they don't manage to corner us off Starfleet property."

Jim grimaced. "Yeah. That's going to be all sorts of fun." He agreed, his voice heavy with sarcasm. "I reserve the right to punch the first person to compare me to him."

Uhura huffed a laugh. "No punching, Jim, no matter how much they deserve it."

"Damn. Taking away all my fun." Jim pouted. "I suppose if I must." He sighed. "I'll try to behave, but I'm not making any promises."


	5. Coming Home

**Enterprise, Day 8 Officer's Lounge**

Part of Jim wished this meeting could have been held before now, but it hadn't been until the last day or so that the repairs had gotten to a point where wasting time on a not-quite-necessary meeting was possible. Now, though, they were roughly a week out from arriving at Spacedock, and not only did they need to get their stories straight for what happened on the ship, they needed to make plans for the media frenzy Jim knew would be waiting for them.

Spock, somewhat predictably, was the first to arrive, followed quickly by Uhura and Sulu. Chekov, Bones, and Scotty arrived a minute later.

"Ok, let's get this done. We all have better things to do than waste time in a meeting." Jim said, grinning at everyone. "First thing's first ... this is a friendly reminder to write up your report on what happened if you haven't already." He was betting most of them hadn't. Hell, he'd only started his yesterday. "If you haven't had to do that before." Here, he looked over at Chekov, who was the most likely to have that problem. "Don't be afraid to ask for help."

Jim glanced around the table. "And while we're on the subject of reports ... what happened on the bridge, stays on the bridge."

Spock predictably objected. "Captain ... "

"Aht." Jim said, waving a hand at him. "You and I both know that certain parties in the Admiralty will use that incident as an excuse to drum you out of Starfleet." He pointed out. "And not for any legitimate reason. They'd do it because they're xenophobic twits. I refuse to give that sort any ammunition, and really, if anyone had any right to bitch about that dustup, it'd be me. Since I have no intention of even remembering it happened, nobody else has any right to give you grief over it."

"I already made sure that there was no mention of it in any of my stuff, even my private log." Uhura said.

"Same here." Admitted Sulu.

"I will have to check mine, but I do not think I said anything." Chekov said.

Scotty just shrugged. "I don't exactly have a personal log set up, now do I? No one'll hear of it from me."

Which just left Bones. Jim cocked an eyebrow at him. Bones looked sour, but sighed. "All right, infant. You have a point. I'll alter my recordings."

Jim grinned, and mentally planned to check Spock's stuff and ensure he didn't sneak some mention of that snafu into a report or personal log for someone to find. He wouldn't put if past him.

"Right, that's taken care of." Jim said, ignoring Spock's cocked eyebrow and slightly pinched expression. "The only other thing we need to cover - and plan for - is how to deal with the media frenzy that's waiting for us on Earth."

"Aye, that's going to be a nightmare." Scotty agreed.

At that point, Chekov showed just how young he was. "They will not be that bad, surely?" He asked.

Jim snorted. "They'll be that bad and worse." He said. While he'd been far too young at the time to remember it, he'd found out later on that in the months immediately after the Kelvin incident, the surviving crew had been hounded almost endlessly, with no regard for the fact that they were traumatized and grieving. Most of them *still* got pounced around the anniversary by reporters. Jim had managed to miss most of it first by dint of living in the middle of nowhere, then by being on the move unpredictably, then by being in the somewhat protected cloister of Starfleet Academy.

"We're going to need to stick together." Sulu said. "Nobody goes anywhere alone. That way if someone gets a little too greedy, we have someone to back us up if necessary." And the more vulnerable members of the command crew - mostly Chekov and Spock - would have someone to hide behind if they needed it.

Uhura cocked her head to one side slightly. "If we need to get out of the crossfire, my parents would probably be willing to host us." She said. "It would have the side benefit of getting us about as far from San Francisco as it's possible to get and still be on the planet."

Jim let out a somewhat relieved breath. He hoped they wouldn't need a retreat like that, but having one was a damned good idea. "Double check with them, Uhura, and if they're willing, pass on our thanks." He said. "I hope like hell we won't need it, but let's face it, the media can get pretty bloodthirsty."

**Day 9**

Spock Prime

Spock had been rescued from Delta Vega, presumably on the orders of the James Kirk of this reality three days ago. The five-day span of time on Delta Vega with only Keenser for company had afforded Spock a much-needed opportunity to meditate and at least attempt to regain his equilibrium.

His words to this reality's Jim when he'd mind-melded with him hadn't been hyperbole. The actual supernova itself would not have threatened the galaxy. It was the Romulans' reaction to losing their homeworld that was the problem. Their sun's fate hadn't been a surprise to the Romulans. It had actually been the driving force behind much of their militaristic streak and tendency towards conquering and subjugation. Spock had known that this would increase exponentially in the aftermath of the supernova as the Romulans sought a new homeworld. He had hoped that helping them would mitigate the worst of it.

That decision had seen him wrangling with the Federation, Starfleet, and most especially the Vulcan High Council for years on top of his efforts to form some sort of trust between the Romulans and himself. It had taken every bit of his acquired knowledge and skill as a diplomat, not to mention more than a few techniques he'd learned from his Jim, to get anywhere. In the end, it had all been for naught.

Now he was in an entirely different reality. One that was more disconcerting than the one where the Federation had been an Empire on the verge of collapse and the people in it had been violent and ... strange. If this reality's James Kirk and Montgomery Scott were anything to go by, this reality's people were unsettlingly like the men and women he had known yet they were also oddly different. The Montgomery Scott Spock knew had never been exiled to Delta Vega, for instance, and his Jim had his father around until he was in his thirties. The change that threw Spock the most, however, was the fact that this Jim had blue eyes. Spock found that change jarring.

Now he was faced with crafting himself a life here. It would be both simple and incredibly difficult. Simple in that, with the vast majority of their records destroyed, the Vulcan Elders would have no proof that Spock was not whoever he eventually claimed to be so long as he was careful. It would be difficult in that he now had to decide what to do from here. He could 'settle down' as the Humans put it, on whatever world the Vulcans chose as their new home, he could become a teacher again, or ... well, the choices were many.

The biggest question Spock faced was: did he impart some of his knowledge? From the brief look he'd had about the ship that had taken him to Earth, the technology here was not identical to what he had known during this time period in his own reality. It might therefore be possible to introduce certain advanced technologies without seriously disrupting things. Better, quite a few things he knew of would help the Vulcans rebuild on a new world.

On the other hand, did he dare speak to Jim or his counterpart about the dangers they had faced in his reality? Most, perhaps even all, would not happen now, as many of their adventures had been dependent on being in a certain place at a certain time. But he might be able to spare them some measure of grief if he did forewarn them about the things that might still happen.

His conscience demanded that he forewarn Starfleet of the Borg. That implacable enemy had nearly brought the Federation to its knees more than once in his reality. True, they'd managed to beat the Borg back, but this reality's Starfleet might have more success if they knew the Borg were out there far sooner than they'd discovered the knowledge in his reality. The only thing Spock knew was that he intended to avoid the Enterprise and her crew like the plague. His aged heart couldn't take the grief and pain being aboard that ship with even part of his old crew would cause.

**Enterprise, Day 10**

Pavel paced uneasily around the small room he shared with several other cadets. The others were all elsewhere at the moment, allowing him a few precious moments to himself. He wasn't quite sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, as it was giving him time to think and fret.

He'd been fine during the emergency, and in the days immediately after. There had been so much to do that Pavel hadn't had time or opportunity to really think about what had happened. Now, however, with the bulk of the possible repairs done, Pavel had repeatedly found himself having enough time to stop and think. Time to think about the fact he'd lost virtually all of his classmates. Time to think about managing to rescue Kirk and Sulu, but failing to rescue Spock's mother. Time to think about Vulcan imploding, and the billions of lives lost. Time to think about that damn near happening to Earth.

Pavel had no idea at all how to deal with this. He had no experience at all with tragedy, and only a minimal experience with loss due to the death of his grandparents two years ago. While his life had not been idyllic, it had been close enough. The worst he'd had to deal with had been bullies that hated smart people, and the inevitable awkwardness that resulted when you were a two years (or more) younger than the next youngest student in the class. Those problems he'd come up with an effective, if unique, solution to. Playing up his youth and (apparent) naiveté kept all but the nastiest types from giving him grief. It also provided a source of amusement for Pavel, as he got a kick out of peoples' reactions to him.

His only comfort was that he didn't think that *anyone* knew how to deal with the situation they found themselves in. Everyone was looking more and more shell-shocked and horrified as they all ran out of things to distract themselves with. Personally, Pavel had found himself doing everything in his power to avoid Spock, and when that wasn't possible, to avoid garnering Spock's attention. He knew it was stupid. He knew Spock wasn't blaming him for his mother's loss, but Pavel couldn't help but think he did.

Hikaru was a lot of thing, but stupid definitely wasn't one of them. He'd noticed Pavel becoming more and more twitchy when he was on the bridge. He'd also noticed how fast Pavel was to get out of Spock's line of sight given the opportunity to do so.

He'd had plenty of time to think about it the last few days. He kept waking up at oh-dark-hundred, wide-eyed, sweating, and flailing hard enough to dump himself off the bunk as he dreamed (yet again) about that terrifying fall through Vulcan's atmosphere. Both terrifying falls, though the second one played itself out more often. Only, in his dream, he and Kirk didn't get beamed out in time.

At least he and Pavel weren't the only ones. Everyone was starting to look ragged and twitchy around the edges, or was walking around red-eyed and sniffly. Given that going back to sleep wasn't an option, Hikaru decided to go bug Pavel. Maybe having some company would help.

The more Spock learned about humans, the less he understood them. They were most illogical beings. Logic dictated that a full, complete, and honest report of events be made. Yet two days ago, the bridge crew had agreed to falsify at least some of their reports. Spock had, of course, attempted to log his own factual report, but had discovered it had been altered when he checked it later. Repeated attempts to include the relevant information resulted in that information being deleted.

Moreover, the bridge recordings had been altered in such a way that there was no indication they *had* been altered, if one did not know the truth of the events that had occurred. Spock had a very good idea who had done that, as there were not all that many people in Starfleet who could match his own skill with computers. Only one of those people happened to be on the Enterprise.

Spock did not understand it, but it was clear to him that the entire command crew was conspiring to protect him. He found it most illogical, as he was sufficiently able to defend himself from false accusations. He had eventually resorted to speaking with his father, attempting to understand this facet of human behavior.

"You will find, Spock, that humans act illogically, but that despite that, there is frequently some sort of logic behind their actions. Your crewmates are correct in their assumption that some members of Starfleet's Admiralty would use your actions during your temporary loss of control as an excuse to force you out of Starfleet. They would do so not because it is logical, but for their own illogical reasons. Your crewmates simply seek to protect you from that illogic." Sarek had told him.

After meditating on his father's words, Spock had finally decided to permit his crewmates' illogical actions, and had ceased attempting to correct his reports to show the true events on the bridge. Jim had clearly become aware that he'd stopped attempting corrections, because this morning when they'd met on the bridge for Alpha Shift, Jim had glanced over at him and given him an amused looking grin.

**Day 15, Spacedock**

Spacedock was normally only sparsely populated. There was only the crew that was required to run the facility, construction, and repair crews that were on the station pretty much at all times. Aside from that, there was the crews of the docked ships coming and going, but they normally beamed straight onto their ships unless the transporters were being worked on, so the crews were seldom seen.

Today, Spacedock was packed to the rafters. Every news anchor, journalist, and reporter on the planet that could wrangle an invitation was here, as well as a large number of off-world media representatives of various stripes. The entire Admiralty was here, wearing their dress best, as was a huge contingent of security personnel there to keep the crowd under control. The families of most of the (known) crew of the Enterprise were there as well, eagerly (or worriedly, as the case might be) waiting for a glimpse of their loved ones. Every Earth-side member of Starfleet that could manage it had also arranged to be here. As a result, there was pretty much standing room only everywhere there was room for people to stand.

For all that there was a nearly unprecedented number of people in Spacedock at the moment, it was surprisingly quiet. There was a quiet, continuous murmur of sound as people spoke in hushed tones to their nearest neighbors, but speaking in normal tones was rare, and louder vocalizations were nonexistent.

Even that level of noise died as three ships came close enough to Spacedock to be seen by the naked eye. The Defiant and the Excalibur, two of the ships that had been in the Laurentian system and that had not yet been reassigned to patrols, were flying escort to either side of the Enterprise. Their gleaming, untouched hulls served as a rather horrifying comparison to the Enterprise. The Enterprise's hull was speckled with score marks, a number of the exterior lights were either turned off or had been blown off, and as it came closer everyone could see several gaping holes in the hull.

Then the Defiant and the Excalibur peeled off, and a female voice piped through Spacedock's intercom system.

"Approach control, this is Enterprise, ready for docking maneuvers."

"Enterprise is clear to dock." The on-duty controller's voice was surprisingly calm and steady, though a faint tinge of relief and delight could be detected if you listened close enough.

And then Kirk's voice, as the acting Captain gave the necessary orders. "Lock on."

Another male voice. "Systems locked."

Kirk again. "Spacedock, you have control."

This time, the delight and joy in the controller's voice was far more audible. "Affirmative, Enterprise. Enjoy the ride. And welcome home."

Kirk one last time. "Enterprise confirms."

Jim breathed a mental sigh as Spacedock took over control of the Enterprise's movement in order to get them docked. They'd finally gotten back. It was good to see Spacedock again after two weeks of limping along. He made sure they weren't broadcasting to Spacedock anymore before he glanced at everyone on the bridge.

"Chekov, Uhura, Spock, you three go get cleaned up and in your dress uniforms if you have them aboard - a clean uniform if you don't, then come back up here. Sulu and I will hold the fort until you get back." Then he and Sulu could go get changed. He punched the button for Sickbay.

"Bones, you have everyone down there ready for transport?" He asked. Fortunately, there were only a handful of crewmen that still needed medical care at this point.

"Just finishing immobilizing Pike now." Bones said.

"Good, soon as you're finished with that, go get cleaned up so we can put on a proper show."

Bones didn't bother replying. He didn't need to. Jim could easily imagine the grumbling. Jim just toggled for Engineering.

"Scotty, we're docking. Go get cleaned up." He ordered.

"Aye aye, Captain." Scotty replied.

The three bridge crew headed for the lift as he talked to Bones and Scotty. Jim was glad for the lessened audience. He needed a little time to start getting his game face on. This was not going to be pretty. Their sensors made it quite clear that Spacedock was packed to the gills with people.

Jim had debated how to handle the offloading, but had eventually decided the bridge crew would beam into Spacedock first. They would attract the lion's share of the media attention. That would hopefully allow the rest of the crew to beam down and reunite with any family in Spacedock in privacy, rather than have microphones in their faces. It helped that three of the bridge crew - himself, Spock, and Bones - weren't going to have anyone in Spacedock to greet. Jim hadn't seen Winona at all - not even by vid - since he left for Tarsus, and hadn't seen Sam in person (though they'd talked a *lot*) since then either. Bones' father had died less than a year before his divorce became final, and his mother, while still alive, had never left Earth's atmosphere, and was unlikely to do so even now. Jim supposed Spock might have human relatives on Earth from his mother's family, but it didn't seem likely.

Uhura was probably going to be able to make up for the fact that three of them weren't expecting anyone. From what she'd said, what seemed like half of Africa was going to show up to welcome her home thanks to multiple siblings and an extensive extended family of cousins, nieces, nephews, and so on. Uhura's parents had indeed made them all welcome in their home in Kenya if they needed a refuge from the press. Jim was pretty sure they'd end up taking them up on it before all was said and done.

As for himself? Well, he knew what the masses wanted to see. Jim Kirk, Hero of Starfleet and the Federation, Nero's Conqeror, son of the great George Kirk. In other words, they were going to be expecting a show. And Jim was going to have to give it to them. Thank goodness he knew how to be flamboyant when the situation called for it. He didn't really even mind all that much, to be honest. He could take the heat and attention. The more attention was on him, the more the rest of the crew - especially Spock - would be spared.

Spock was back the quickest of the three that went to get cleaned up and changed. Jim nodded to him.

"You have the bridge, Spock. I'll be back in a bit." Jim told him.

He was going to have to borrow one of Bones' spare uniforms again, but at least they fit and would be clean. It was better than having to beam down in civvies.

Right about the time the Enterprise officially docked, they were all back on the bridge. Jim acknowledged the final sign-offs on the docking, then the real fun began.

"Spacedock, we have ten to beam directly to Starfleet Medical from Sickbay." Jim told them.

"Acknowledged, Enterprise. Starfleet Medical is standing by for transport." The comm officer on Spacedock told them.

"Transporter Room 1, lock on to Sickbay and transport in ten seconds."

"Aye aye, Captain." Came Scotty's voice. "Energizing in eight ... " He continued the countdown, then "Energizing."

A few moments later, they got a signal from Starfleet Medical indicating the five badly injured crewmen, Neurology expert and four nurses had arrived.

"Spacedock, Command Crew will be beaming down in two minutes." Jim warned them.

"Acknowledged, Enterprise."

They all finished shutting down the bridge then headed for the transporter room. One of the Engineering crew took over transporter controls for Scotty, and he joined them on the pad. Jim glanced around, making sure everyone was in position.

"We're going to get mobbed the second we materialize." He told them. "Stay close, and if anyone gets grabby, close ranks. Sulu, you have my permission to beat their asses." He said. He fully intended to get violent himself if anyone got out of hand, bad press be damned. He wasn't going to have his people be hounded.

Sulu grinned at him toothily. "My pleasure." He said.

Jim nodded at the crewman. "Energize." He commanded, then put a big grin on his face.

They beamed into a wall of bright lights and shouting. Jim felt the others edge closer to him, closing their formation in reaction to the racket. He had to blink a few times to clear his own vision. Once he could see properly, he realized that Starfleet had anticipated the crush. There was a contingent of beefy, grim-faced security guards around them, their backs to the Enterprise crew as they stared down the media reps trying to get to them.

Jim puffed his chest out and swaggered forward like he hadn't a care in the world. The security team moved with them, acting as a buffer to get them where they needed to go. Jim deliberately ignored them and reached past them, shaking hands and hamming it up for the cameras for all he was worth. The people were more than happy to let him. Better still, it was definitely taking some of the pressure of the rest of the command crew. They were still garnering a lot of attention, but Jim seemed to be defusing the worst of their rabidness with his play-acting.

Much to his amusement, Chekov seemed to catch on to what he was doing, and with a grin, started flinging himself at the press, playing up the wide-eyed, naive youth angle. Jim was glad to see him on what seemed like a more even keel. He'd noticed Chekov seemed to have been hit harder than some of the other crew. He seemed to have started to bounce back a couple of days ago thankfully.

Finally, they made it past the worst of the media crush, only to get swarmed a second time. This time, however, it was a far more pleasant swarm. Four sets of parents and not a few siblings (going by apparent ages) descended on them en-masse. Jim sensed more than saw Spock step close in behind him, using Jim's body as a buffer between him and the sudden onslaught of people. To his surprise, he saw Bones move to bracket Spock out of the corner of his eye. Evidently, Bones was finally beginning to forgive Spock, either that or Bones' protective streak had gotten drawn into action. Maybe both.

Jim stood with the two of them and watched the whole thing with a bit of amusement. It took a good fifteen or twenty minutes for everyone to calm down. Then, inevitably, came the introductions. Jim got to meet everyone's parents and the siblings that had managed to make it. Greetings and thanks did the rounds.

Then, finally, four Admirals led by Admiral Barnett approached. Jim was privately relieved that Komack wasn't one of the other four. Probably because the man couldn't manage to act grateful for the public's consumption. He saluted, followed a second later by the rest of the command crew.

"Admirals." He said.

"Acting Captain Kirk." Admiral Barnett said, giving them a nod. "Commander Spock, Cadets." Then, in a voice meant to be heard (and recorded) by the media representatives somewhere behind them. "You are all a credit to Starfleet."

There followed a little speech that Jim didn't pay any mind whatever to. Finally, Barnett gave a final sharp nod. "Let's get you planet-side, shall we?" He asked, and then motioned to the lurking security personnel, who immediately began making a path to the transporter pad.

The quiet of Starfleet Academy's Administration Building was a welcome relief after the racket in Spacedock. Here, there was a surprise waiting for them. Well, for Bones and Jim, anyway.

Standing not ten feet from the pad was none other than Sam Kirk. Jim's eyes went wide.

"Sam? Holy shit. How the hell ... ?"

"Like they were going to say no to a reunion after what you pulled?" Same asked somewhat rhetorically before pulling Jim into a hard hug. "You did good, Jim. Real good. Wish I could have been there with you. I would have enjoyed blowing that bastard to hell and gone."

Jim let out a laugh as he thumped Sam's back. "It did feel inordinately good." He admitted. Though not for reasons any of the eavesdropping Admirals would assume, he was sure. "

A few feet away from Sam was Bones' surprise. His mother may not have been willing to go into space for any reason, but she hadn't been about to leave Leonard in the lurch entirely. That included having a ... discussion ... with Leonard's ex-wife, both to muzzle the woman's tongue and inform her that Joanna would be joining her in San Francisco, visitation agreements and rules be damned.

"Daddy!" Joanna McCoy, who had only just turned three, didn't quite understand what had happened two weeks ago. And she didn't care. All she cared about was the fact that her grandma was bringing her to see her daddy. She flung herself at her father, torn between climbing him and hugging his leg hard enough to cut off circulation.

Not that she needed to make a choice. Leonard had her in his arms and tucked against his side almost before she'd moved. "Jo, how's my peach blossom?"

Jo giggled at him. "I'm good, daddy."

Over her head, Leonard mouthed a heart-felt 'thank you' to his mother, who came in for her own hug. Leonard hadn't seen much of Joanna since the divorce. He hadn't been exaggerating all that much to Jim when he'd told him all he had left was his bones after the divorce. Jocelyn had gotten half of everything in the divorce, plus alimony, plus sole custody of Joanna while he got rather scant visitation terms. He'd largely had to make do with pictures, though his mother had been religious about taking as many pictures as she could manage every time Joanna got in range of her.

"So, Aurelan and the boys are at a hotel near here." Sam said.

Jim boggled. "You're shitting me." He said. He'd never actually met Aurelan. They'd talked a time or two, but usually only 'oh, hi Jim, let me get Sam for you' sort of stuff. Peter, who was about the same age as Bones' little girl, Jim had talked to more. Mostly because Sam practically had to have Peter surgically removed from him for the first year. Jim supposed it was a first-time father thing he had no intention of ever experiencing. Aurelan had given birth to a second son just a month or two before all hell had broken loose. "We'll have to get together once things calm down a little bit."

Sam nodded. "Absolutely. Aurelan'll have my hide if I don't."

Jim laughed. "You are so whipped." He said.

"Happy to be." Sam pointed out.

"Hey, you still busy out back of beyond?" Jim asked as he had a thought.

"Not as busy as we were, no." Sam said. "Why?"

Jim jerked his head, indicating Spock. "I think some folks might be up for some help with biological research, you know?"

Sam nodded. "Good point." He agreed. "I'll bring it up with Aurelan, see what she thinks."

"In the meantime ... " Jim said, then motioned for Spock, who'd been looking a touch awkward, to come over. "This is Spock. He's the one that actually blew that ship the hell up. Drove another ship right up it's ass."

Sam grinned widely at Spock as Spock approached. "A nice bit of work, Mr. Spock. Couldn't have happened to a nicer maniac."

Spock looked a little befuddled for a moment before he settled on. "I believe the correct human phrase is 'you're welcome'."

Then, in a far more sober tone, Sam continued. "And I'm damn sorry about Vulcan. I imagine your people are going to be hearing this a lot in the weeks and months to come, but if there's anything I can do to help, don't hesitate to contact me. I'm a research biologist and my wife and I have spent most of the last decade on a colony world, so I know my way around that sort of environment."

Spock nodded. "I will ensure the Elders have your contact particulars." He said. "It will be some time before a place to settle is chosen, but a variety of skills will be needed once a world has been located."

Eventually, Bones was convinced to turn lose of Joanna, and they were all settled in their rooms, to be kept separate until their debriefings were done. That process would probably take a few days, given the sheer magnitude of events and how much there was to go over.

Once in his assigned room, Jim was quick to peel out of the borrowed uniform and take another shower. He wasn't exactly dirty, but the warm water would help him relax after all the showboating he'd done. He wasn't looking forward to the debriefing. He was going to get raked over the coals more than a little. Thank goodness that the regulations covered his ass. It'd stop the nay-sayers from doing something shit-stupid like drumming him out of Starfleet. Though Jim almost wished they'd try it. It would be amusing to sit back and watch the feeding frenzy that would result, without him having to do a damn thing to incite it.


End file.
